This guide is a collection of resources for learning Evidence-based Nursing.
Tips on writing a literature review
An ongoing process by which evidence, nursing theory and the practitioners' clinical expertise are critically evaluated and considered, in conjunction with patient involvement, to provide delivery of optimum nursing care for the individual
Scott K & McSherry, R. (2009). Evidence-based nursing: Clarifying the concepts for nurses in practice. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 18(8), 1085-1095. 10.1111/j.1365-2702.2008.02588.x.
Evidence Based Practice (EBP) integrates the following three factors into the decision-making process for patient care:
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Evidence-Based Practice requires new skills, including efficient literature searching, and the application of formal rules of evidence in evaluating the clinical literature. THE STEPS: 1. ASK the question |
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2. ACQUIRE the evidence |
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3. APPRAISE the evidence |
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4. APPLY: talk with the patient |
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5. ASSESS the process |
The following databases contain systematic reviews and meta-analyses of healthcare interventions, diagnostic tools, and more.
Content: EBSCO’s nursing database covering biomedicine, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health, and allied health disciplines.
Purpose: Database for research in nursing, medicine, and consumer health.
Special Features: Strong qualitative studies. Filter studies by nurse as author, evidence-based practice, and type of study. Includes MESH indexing, PICO search functionality, text-to-speech feature for some articles, and a tool for discovering citing articles.
The premier full-text medical database. Contains scholarly articles on all health sciences topics.
Content: A point-of-care, evidence-based clinical resource.
Purpose: Useful for quick information about conditions, drugs, etc.
Special Features: You will be prompted to create an account the first time you log into UpToDate that will allow you to search UpToDate and save reports using the default windows in Chrome or Firefox. The registration link might not work if you use a Chrome incognito window or Firefox private window. Students must be enrolled in selective Nursing program for access.
Provides citations and summaries of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, all in psychology and related disciplines, dating as far back as the 1800s. 99 percent of the covered material is peer-reviewed. The database also includes information about the psychological aspects of related fields such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, law, and others. Journal coverage, which spans 1887 to present, includes international material selected from nearly 2 000 periodicals in more than 25 languages. Can limit by publisher, publication year, publication status, publication type, document type, book type, peer reviewed, language, population group, age group, intended audience, methodology and classification codes.
Content: Includes citations to millions of biomedical journal articles, as well as some books, book chapters, and reports.
Purpose: An essential database for biomedical and health topics
Special Features: Includes MeSH search functionality
- Florence Nightingale is credited with starting evidence-based research. Even though the terminology "evidence-based practice" was not used during her time, her theories of nursing and healthcare were based on this concept of research.
- During the Crimean War, she was a passionate statistician. Through her use of statistics, she kept track of mortality rates of soldiers in order to better improve patient outcomes.
A synthesis of research studies on a given topic. The studies included in a systematic review are selected through pre-established criteria such as hypothesis or a research question, patient/populations, study design, and methodology. Systematic reviews are used to provide an objective assessment of primary research evidence on a given topic, and are frequently used in evidence-based practice (EBP).
A document that describes and outlines that processes that wil lbe undertaken while conducting a systematic review before it is conducted. The purpose of protocols are:
A study that combines the statistical data of multiple studies based on pre-established criteria. This is done to increase the power over an individual study, improve estimates of the size of an intervention or effect, or attempt to resole uncertainty when the outcomes of multiple studies are not consistent. The information drawn from a meta-analysis is often utilized in evidence-based practice (EBP).
