LibGuides: EBP &amp; PICOT Questions: 2a. ACQUIRE: Gather the Evidence

Step 2: Gather the Evidence

Try to search comprehensively as much as possible. Begin with databases that are related to your PICOT question, such as specialized databases or databases related to the discipline. Try searching the recommended sources below. They are listed based on importance.

Hierarchy of External Evidence

Filtered Resources (pre-appraised)

Search for pre-appraised/filtered or synthesized literature where the quality of the evidence is evaluated for you and include

systematic reviews

meta-analyses, and

clinical practice guidelines

Cochrane Library Online This link opens in a new window Leading resource for systematic reviews in health care. Contains high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making.

PubMed's Clinical Queries The "Clinical Queries" search tool is designed to retrieve targeted results to clinical questions.
ECRI Guidelines Trust (requires a free registration) "ECRI Guidelines Trust is an interactive guideline portal, puts current, evidence-based clinical practice guideline summaries directly into the hands of clinicians, researchers, medical librarians, and patients."

Open Access Evidence-Based Resources

The Campbell Collaboration Produces high quality, open and policy-relevant syntheses, plain language summaries, and policy briefs.
The Community Guide Systematic reviews of interventions in many topic areas to learn what works to promote public health.
Electronic Preventive Services Selector (ePSS) "ePSS is an application designed to provide primary care clinicians and health care teams timely decision support regarding appropriate screening, counseling, and preventive services for their patients."
Epistemonikos "An evidence library for those making decisions in health care and health policy."
Health Services/Technology Assessment Texts (HSTAT) Provides documents useful in health care decision making. Includes: clinical practice guidelines, quick-reference guides for clinicians, consumer brochures, evidence reports, and other guidelines.
What Works Clearinghouse (U.S. Department of Education)

Unfiltered Resources

Unfiltered databases (you must evaluate the quality of the evidence) and most allow users to limit by research design. Unfiltered databases provide primary/original research studies.

PubMed@UA This link opens in a new window PubMed (includes MEDLINE)
CINAHL Plus with Full Text This link opens in a new window Comprehensive source for full text nursing and allied health journal literature.
PsycNET This link opens in a new window Searchable interface to select APA databases and publications (PsycARTICLES, PsycBOOKS, PsycEXTRA, & PsycTESTS).
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window Multi-disciplinary source for scholarly, popular, professional, and news publications. This is a good place to start many searches or to gather material from various disciplines at once.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window A rich collection of citation indexes representing the citation connections between scholarly research articles found in the most globally significant journals, books, and proceedings in the sciences, social sciences and art & humanities.

TRIP Database This clinical search engine searches multiple EBP resources.
ACCESS (registration required) Searches multiple EBP resources (e.g., evidence-driven medical publications).

Evidence-Based Medicine Journals

Evidence-Based Practice (Family Physicians Inquiries Network) "Each issue contains 8 to 12 new HelpDesk Answers and several other evidence-based feature articles"
JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports Online journal with some free systematic review protocols and systematic reviews.

EBP & PICOT Questions

PICO or PICOT Tools