LaChance Library: Nursing: Evidence-Based Practice

Publication Types that Demonstrate Evidence

CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
BEST BET FOR NURSING AND ALLIED HEALTH FIELDS

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

Evidence Based Practice, Step by Step
The purpose of this 12-article series is to give nurses the knowledge and skills they need to implement EBP consistently, one step at a time. From the American Journal of Nursing.

Open Access Databases for Finding Evidence

These are freely available, valuable sources of information.

PEDro This link opens in a new window
Randomized trials, systematic reviews and clinical practice guidelines in physiotherapy.
TRIP This link opens in a new window
Turning Research into Practice is a clinical search engine for research evidence.
AHRQ This link opens in a new window
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality provides abstracts, reports, and reviews that evaluate and analyze the medical literature.

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, the quality of evidence grows towards the top. There are 6 segments in the pyramid, #1 is at the bottom and #6 is at the top. #6, Systematic Reviews. #5, Critically-Appraised Topics and Articles. #4, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs). #3, Cohort Studies. #2, Case-Controlled Studies, Case Series/Reports. #1, Background Information/Expert Opinion.

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