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Nursing: Evidence-Based Practice

Publication Types that Demonstrate Evidence

CASE STUDY: Observations on a single individual.

PRACTICE GUIDELINES: Care models developed by expert nursing researchers and validated by experts.

RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIAL: An experiment in which two or more interventions, possibly including a control (or no) intervention, are compared by being randomly allocated to participants.

RESEARCH: An original, complete research study containing data collection, methodology, discussion of results, etc.

REVIEW: An article which summarizes a number of different studies and may draw conclusions about a particular intervention; an overview.

META-ANALYSIS: Uses statistical techniques in a systematic review to integrate the results of included studies. 

META-SYNTHESIS: Articles that indicate the presence of a qualitative methodology that integrates results from a number of different, but inter-related studies.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW: A review of a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review.

EBP for Nurses

Open Access Databases for Finding Evidence

These are freely available, valuable sources of information.

EBP Pyramid

Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) Resources

Evidence-Based Medicine is the integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values.

EBM quality of evidence pyramid

(Sackett DL, Straus SE, Richardson WS, et al. Evidence-based medicine: how to practice and teach EBM. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 2000.)

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