Evidence-based information

Evidence-based practice

Evidence based practice is the provision of health care guided by the integration of the best available scientific or research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values.

This approach allows health care practitioners to critically assess evidence such as research studies, clinical guidelines, and other information resources in order to correctly identify the clinical problem and apply the most high-quality intervention.

Finding evidence

Collated (tertiary) information

Tertiary sources are sources that find, and collate secondary and primary resources. Examples of teritary sources relevant to your studies includes textbooks - which you can find in the library catalogue, or your online sources such as AHM - see drug information.

Filtered (secondary) information

The best sources for filtered information are specialised Library databases that provide access to evidence based systematic reviews, summaries, recommendations and clinical guidelines, including:

You can often find clinical guidelines and recommendations freely available on the web from government websites and professional associations. For example, the:

Trip Medical Database is a smart, fast tool to find and access high quality clinical research evidence
The GIN international guideline library and registry of guidelines in development, powered by EBSCO, contains guidelines from across the globe in many languages, both published and in development

Unfiltered (primary) information sources

Good sources of unfiltered information are journal articles from peer-reviewed journals. This is where researchers publish the results of their research studies. Other sources include preprints, conference proceedings and theses.

You can find journal articles using Library Search or use subject specialised journal article databases, such as nursing databases and psychology databases.

Key databases for finding health related journal articles include:

Embase
Embase covers worldwide literature in health, including biochemistry, biomedical engineering and medical instrumentation, biotechnology, clinical and experimental medicine, drugs, environmental science, hospital management, medical devices, occupational hygiene, pediatrics, pharmacy, public health, psychology and alternative medicine.
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Medline (via EBSCOhost)
The authoritative database for medicine and health research produced by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). It indexes the most prominent journals used in the field of medical research.
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CINAHL (via EBSCOhost)
Selected fulltext of articles and other publications covering numerous nursing and allied health disciplines.
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