Access to health care is limited in rural areas. Additionally, these settings are generally geographically remote, making it more difficult for physicians to participate in continuing medical education activities. EBM may have particular relevance and benefits for rural health practice. In Australia, the level of clinical knowledge was found to be low among rural practitioners. The evidence-based approach is imperative in a resource-limited setting because this approach emphasizes the use of treatments with proven effectiveness. The practice of EBM allows health service managers to determine which services will provide the greatest benefit to the community served. However, the adoption of EBM in rural practice presents challenges. These include greater time pressure, unworkable standard clinical guidelines, more difficult access to research databases, isolation, and lack of organizational support and resources. Rural practitioners also tend to be generalists; the breadth of their practice makes implementing EBM difficult. There has been little empirical research on the processes that lead to the adoption of EBM in this context. This study is part of a larger project, the Frontline Equitable Evidence-based Decision-Making (FrEEDoM) study, which aims to develop an intervention to help physicians retrieve evidence to aid in clinical decision-making. THE