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Evidence-Based Practice Toolkit for Nursing

Created in collaboration with the OHSU Clinical Inquiry Council

Searching for EBP Articles, Guidelines, and Resources

The short video below walks you through basic steps for effective searching in PubMed, but this is just the tip of the searching iceberg. The second video in the list of links showcases different search techniques. Schedule a consultation to get personalized assistance from library experts. OHSU librarians and staff are available to address and support your information needs, including literature searching and citation management.  

If no official EBM review has been done on your topic, these filters and hedges may be helpful in reducing the amount of literature you need to analyze.
 

Evidence-based guidelines are the basis for evidence-based practice. Below are a few tips on how to find current guidelines:

  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) guidelines - "The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) mission is to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable, and to work within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and with other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used."
  • U.S. Preventive Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations - USPSTF "is an independent panel of experts in primary care and prevention that systematically reviews the evidence of effectiveness and develops recommendations for clinical preventive services."
  • Professional Organizations such as the American Heart Association, the National Cancer Institute, the American Psychiatric Association or the American Academy of Pediatrics may post relevant evidence based medicine reviews or practice guidelines based on EBP reviews on their Web sites.
  • ClinicalKey for Nursing contains full text guidelines published in Elsevier journals only.
  • To find guidelines in DynaMed and UpToDate, select a topic, then scroll down in the left column to Guidelines and Resources or Society Guidelines respectively.  
  • Find guidelines in Library databases such as PubMed and CINAHL:
    • In PubMed:
      • After conducting a topic search, use the Publication Type filters: Guideline, Practice Guideline, Consensus Development Conference, or Consensus Development Conference NIH
      • Or search for the topic and combine with a search for ("practice guideline"[Publication Type] OR "practice guidelines as topic"[MeSH] OR ("guideline"[Publication Type] OR "guidelines as topic"[MeSH]  OR ("consensus development conference"[Publication Type] OR "consensus development conferences as topic"[MeSH])
    • In CINAHL:
      • Search the topic and click on Edit to the right of the results in search history, then select Practice Guideline as a Publication Type.
      • Or combine your topic search with a search for the CINAHL heading - Practice Guidelines.

All of the resources above are linked to below.

Citation Guidelines:

Systematic reviews can be found by searching PubMed or CINAHL by using the following strategies:

  • In PubMed: 
    • After conducting search on a topic, select Additional Filters, show Article Type Meta-Analysis or Systematic Review, and click on both to narrow down your search.
    • Conduct the search on your topic, then another search using the following strategy:
      "systematic review"[Publication Type] OR "systematic reviews as topic"[MeSH Terms] OR "systematic review"[All Fields] OR "meta analysis"[Publication Type] OR "meta analysis as topic"[MeSH Terms] OR "meta analysis"[All Fields]
      and using AND to combine the two searches. 
  • In CINAHL:
    • Conduct the search on your topic, then another search using the following strategy:
      (MH "Meta Analysis") OR "meta analysis" OR (MH "Systematic Review") OR "systematic review" OR (MH "Cochrane Library")
      then combine the two searches using AND. 
    • Search for your topic, then click on Edit to the right of the search results in the Search History. Scroll to Publication Type and select Meta Analysis and Systematic Review. You can select both at the same time by holding down the Control key in Windows or the Command key on the Mac.
  • Systematic reviews can also be found by searching for topics directly in the Cochrane Library Database or in Joanna Briggs Institute Journals found below.

For information about the OHSU Nursing Clinical Inquiry Council, see our webpage on the Ozone: