Scenario 1:

Your aunt Clara has been gaining some weight in the past few years. She attributes this to increasing work commitments and the lack of time to exercise and shop for healthy food. She has been looking online and has been thinking of commencing a new natural herbal appetite suppressant that has been advertised called "idreamthin" and has asked for your advice on this product. With the increasing push on quick ways to lose weight and the increasing availability of these hunger control or appetite suppressants, you decide that the use of herbal appetite suppressants requires further investigation. Given you are learning about the importance of using evidence to inform practice you want to know if there is any evidence for these.

Scenario 2:

Your mother is experiencing knee pain, due to osteoarthritis. She has tried many treatments to assist her with her pain reduction, none of which she feels have been satisfactory. Her local pharmacist has suggested that she start on a course of glucosamine to assist her joint health. You remember hearing about how glucosamine has been effective in assisting dogs become more mobile, but you are not sure about its effects on adults. As she does not wish to waste further time or money on yet another treatment, you decide it would be best to look for authoritative evidence on the topic first.

Scenario 3:

You are a new allied health graduate and you are working in a community health service. Your manager is concerned that the service's lengthy appointment waiting list for podiatry, physiotherapy and dietetics is filled with older people experiencing chronic disease, whose health issues seem to be linked to poor chronic disease self-management. To reduce waiting times for clients, your manager has asked you to investigate whether there is any evidence to support running a chronic disease self-management program as a way to improve the capacity of older people to manage their illnesses. You set about searching for evidence.

Scenario 4:

You offer to drive your 75 year-old grandmother to her weekly lawn bowls match as her car is currently being serviced. During the ride, she explains to you how she has felt so much better since taking up lawn bowls one year ago. She goes onto add that she feels less depressed and that this is directly related to her increased physical activity. Being a health sciences student at University, she expects that you will be able to confirm her sentiments. You reply by saying that you have not studied depression and exercise as yet, but you will undertake a search of the available evidence and meet up with her again to go through your findings.