Evidence Based Practice - Master of Science - Nurse Practitioner - Subject/Research Guides at Wilmington University Library

PICO for Clinical Questions

Healthcare professionals sometimes use the PICO or PICOT format to develop keywords for searching of clinical questions where:

P - Patient or Population or Problem

I - Intervention or prognostic factor of interest

C - Comparison to intervention

O - Outcome of interest

T - Time (sometimes included)

For more information about forming and using a PICO question to search, please see the American Journal of Nursing article below.

Evidence-Based Practice, Step by Step: Asking the Clinical Question: A Key Step in Evidence-Based Practice (2010).

Evaluating Evidence

EBP Form for Evaluating the Literature

How to Read a Paper by Trisha Greenhalgh
Publication Date: 2000, eBook
Describes the different types of clinical research reporting, and explains how to critically appraise the publications.

Information about Practicing EBP

Evidence Based Practice Step by Step
The purpose of these 12 articles from the American Journal of Nursing is to give nurses the knowledge and skills they need to implement EBP consistently, one step at a time.
Glossary of EBM Terms
BMJ Best Practice
Glossary of Evidence-based Terms
Not a comprehensive glossary but it outlines some of the key terms that should be understood in relation to Evidence-Based practice. From the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (University of Oxford)

Evidence Based Practice for Nurses

Learn more about EBP and building EBP skills. Click on the title to view the journal article.

Searching Licensed Resources for Clincial Evidence

CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
CINAHL Complete provides easy access to 1,400 top nursing and allied health journals with full text dating back to 1937 and information for more than 50 nursing specialties, including speech language pathology, nutrition, general health and medicine, along with evidence-based care sheets, research instruments and quick lessons. In addition, this database offers access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, audiovisuals and book chapters.
MEDLINE This link opens in a new window
MEDLINE provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. Created by the National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing to search citations from over 5,400 current biomedical journals.
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews This link opens in a new window
The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) is the leading source of peer-reviewed systematic reviews in healthcare. Each Cochrane Review is a systematic review that has been prepared and supervised by a Cochrane Review Group (editorial team). It attempts to identify, appraise and synthesize all the empirical evidence that meets pre-specified eligibility criteria to answer a specific research question. Researchers conducting systematic reviews use explicit, systematic methods that are selected with a view aimed at minimizing bias, to produce more reliable findings to inform decision-making. This database is updated quarterly.

Searchable Open Access Resources

National Guideline Clearinghouse
Public resource for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.
Cochrane Library
High quality evidence for health care decision making. This is the open-access version so is not completely full text, but many systematic reviews are freely available.
PubMed Clinical Queries
Specialized PubMed searches designed to connect clinicians to evidence-based literature. Results display available systematic reviews as well as research articles arranged by 5 clinical areas--Etiology, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Clinical prediction guidelines, & Therapy.
PubMed
Provides information for consumers and clinicians on prevention and treatment of diseases and conditions and specializes in reviews of clinical effectiveness research, with easy-to-read summaries for consumers as well as full technical reports. Clinical guides are available on the Contents tab.
NLM Resources for Informing Comparative Effectiveness
The purpose of the search strategies presented here is to help inform discussions on or relating to comparative effectiveness by providing retrieval of a full-range of studies on the efficacy-effectiveness-effectiveness in the "real world" continuum
DARE (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects)
Focused primarily on systematic reviews that evaluate the effects of health care interventions and the delivery and organization of health services.
The database also includes reviews of the wider determinants of health such as housing, transport, and social care where these impact directly on health, or have the potential to impact on health.
TRIP Database
A clinical search engine designed to allow users to quickly and easily find and use high-quality research evidence to support their practice and/or care. Offers the ability to filter by several options including evidence-based synopses, systematic reviews, primary research, and controlled trials.
AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) Guidelines and Recommendations
Includes links to the National Guideline Clearinghouse, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, the Guide to Preventative Services, and an archive of guidelines published by AHRQ between 1992 and 1996.