Medicine subject guide - Links
Evidence based practice
Definition | Databases | Methodology filters | Government sites | University sites | Research institutes | Clinical news | E-journals | EBP articles | E-texts | Newsgroups and discussion groups
Definition
Databases
Agency for Health Care Policy and Research
Database of Clinical Practice Guidelines produced by the AHCPR.
HSTAT (Health Services/Technology Assessment Text)
- Free web-based resource with access to full-text documents
- Provides health information for health care decision making.
- HSTAT's audience includes health care providers, health service researchers, and policy makers.
- Publications, including clinical practice guidelines, quick reference guides for clinicians, consumer health brochures, evidence reports and technology assessments are available from contributors such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the National Institutes of Health.
- For more information see the HSTAT Factsheet
University of Sydney Library Databases
- EBMR: Best Evidence 1991+ - provides access to all issues of ACP Journal Club. The editors apply the strictest criteria for study design to review over 90 journals in internal medicine and other specialties such as psychiatry, ophthalmology, gynecology, and surgery.
- EBMR: Cochrane Clinical Trials Register - CCTR contains over 300,000 bibliographic references to controlled clinical trials in health care. Contributors to the Cochrane Collaboration ensure that only reports of definite randomized controlled trials or controlled clinical trials are included. These records are identified through a combination of handsearching and database searching.
- EBMR: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 1991+ - includes the full text of the regularly updated systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare prepared by The Cochrane Collaboration.
- EBM Reviews - Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness 1991+ - DARE is a database containing critical assessments of systematic reviews from a variety of medical journals. DARE is produced by the National Health Services' Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (NHS CRD) at the University of York, England. DARE records cover topics such as diagnosis, prevention, rehabilitation, screening, and treatment.
- Medline - Use EBM Reviews limit and Clinical Queries Limits to restrict results to the best Evidence.
EBM Reviews Limit will restrict Medline results to papers found in one of the EBM Reviews Databases. The results are evidence-based resources reviewed by experts in the filed.
Clinical Queries Limits restrict search results to the best clinical evidence available for a particular question type.
Methodology filters
- EBM : Searching for the Best Evidence in Medical Literature
- PubMed's Table for Clinical Queries using Research Methodology Filters
- ADEPT (Applying Diagnosis, (a)Etiology, Prognosis &
Therapy)
Methodological filters for retrieving evidence) produced by the University of Sheffield.
Government sites
Department of Health and Aged Care
- National Health Priorities and Quality Branch - Aims to improve safety and quality of acute health care services in Australia.
- Quality Use of Medicines - Aim is to improve the way medicines are prescribed and used.
University sites
- Monash University. Centre for Clinical Effectiveness
Especially useful is the Evidence Based Answers to Clinical Questions for Busy Clinicians - McMaster University. Health Information Research Unit (HIRU)
User's Guides to Evidence-Based Practice. - Oxford University. Centre for Evidence Based Mental Health
- University of Hertfordshire EBM site
- University of Sheffied School of Health and Related Research
Netting the Evidence a ScHARR introduction to Evidence Based Practice on the Internet. - University of Sydney. Effective Healthcare Australia
Research institutes
- Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, London.
Centre for Evidence-Based Child Health. - The Joanna Briggs Institute.
Organisations
- Australasian Cochrane Centre
Has general information on the Cochrane Collaboration as well as contact details for the Cochrane Groups. The site also provides access to Guidelines, Manuals, and Software. - Canadian Centres for Health Evidence.net
- Cochrane Collaboration Consumer Network
Sections included are Cochrane health summaries, Understanding health research, consumer participation in research, news and discussion. - Effective Healthcare Australia
- Royal Australian College of Physicians. Health Policy Unit
Getting Evidence into Practice.
Clinical news
E-journals
- ACP Journal Club and Evidence-Based Medicine
Both journals are available to University of Sydney staff and students on Ovid's EBMR: Best Evidence Database. - Bandolier : Evidence-based healthcare
- Effective Clinical Practice
Has selected fulltext articles from the current issue. - Effective Health Care Bulletins
Produced at the U.K. NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York. - Effectiveness Matters
Produced at the U.K. NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York. - Health Evidence Bulletins (Wales)
- NHS Health Technology Assessment Programme Publications
Include titles like: Systematic review of outpatient services for chronic pain control. Effectiveness and efficiency of methods of dialysis therapy for end-stage renal disease.
EBP articles
- Users' Guide to Evidence-Based Practice
- Trish Greenhalgh's How to Read a Paper series
- Greenhalgh, Trisha (1997) How to read a paper : Getting your bearings (deciding what the paper is about. BMJ No 7102 Vol 315.
- Greenhalgh, Trisha (1997) How to read a paper : Assessing the methodological quality of published papers. BMJ No 7103 Vol 315.
- Greenhalgh, Trisha 1997) How to read a paper : Statistics for the non-statistician. BMJ No 7104 Vol 315.
- Greenhalgh, Trisha (1997) How to read a paper : Statistics for the non-statistician. II: Significant relations and their pitfalls. BMJ No 7105 Vol 315.
- Greenhalgh, Trisha (1997) How to read a paper : Papers that report drug trials. BMJ No 7106 Vol 315.
- Greenhalgh, Trisha (1997) How to read a paper : Papers that report diagnostic or screening tests. BMJ No 7107 Vol 315.
- Greenhalgh, Trisha (1997) How to read a paper : Papers that tell you what things cost (economic analyses). BMJ No 7108 Vol 315.
- Greenhalgh, Trisha (1997) How to read a paper : Papers that summarise other papers (systematic reviews and meta analyses). BMJ No 7109 Vol 315.
- Greenhalgh, Trisha (1997) How to read a paper : Papers that go beyond numbers (qualitative research). BMJ No 7110 Vol 315.
- Bero, Lisa A et al (1998) Closing the gap between research and practice: an overview of systematic reviews of interventions to promote the implementation of research findings. BMJ Vol 317 pp465-468.
- Lipman, Tobyand Price, Dawn (2000) Decision making, evidence, audit, and education: case study of antibiotic prescribing in general practice. BMJ Vol 320 pp1114-1118.
- Statistics and Research Methods
Includes Links to Full-text articles discussing : Bayesian statistics - descriptions and examples, Qualitative Research - descriptions and examples, Randomized Controlled Trials - descriptions and examples, Systematic reviews (incl meta-analyses) - descriptions and examples.
Reproduced on Centres for Health Evidence.net with permission from JAMA. The guide includes the following: how to use primary studies about therapy, diagnosis, harm and prognosis. How to use integrative studies that are overviews, decision analysis, practice guidelines, outcome analyses, health-related quality of life measurements, and the applicability of clinical trials results.
Guyatt, G.H. et al (2000) Practitioners of evidence based care. BMJ 320 (7240), April 8, 954-955.
BMJ: Education and Debate Fulltext articles
E-texts
- Information for Guideline Developers
- A guide to the development, evaluation and implementation of clinical practice guidelines
Emphasises the importance of basing guideline recommendations on the systematic identification and synthesis of the best available scientific evidence. Levels of evidence, quality of evidence, relevance of evidence and strength of evidence are outlined.This publication is supplemented with a series of handbooks. Each handbook focuses on a different aspect of the guideline development process. - NHMRC handbook series on preparing clinical practice guidelines
How to review the evidence: systematic identification and review of the scientific literature(585kb)
Describes the process of identify scientific literature relevant to a particular question. Also describes how to select and reviews the most important (highest quality) studies and summarise and present the results for further consideration by the committee that will develop the clinical practice guidelines. - How to use the evidence: assessment and application of scientific evidence (524kb)
Explains how to evaluate and use the evidence gathered from a systematic literature review to inform the development of evidence-based clinical guidelines. It builds on the information presented in an accompanying handbook in this series How to review the evidence: systematic identification and review of the scientific literature. - How to put the evidence into practice: implementation and dissemination strategies (386kb)
Focuses on the issues related to changing clinical practice with the implementation of clinical guidelines or other evidence-based information. - How to present the evidence for consumers: preparation of consumer publications (322kb)
Focuses on how to prepare guideline information in a way that consumers can easily understand. - How to prepare and present evidence-based information for consumers of health services: A Literature review (1999) (120kb)
This literature review provides further details and evidence for many of the issues raised in the handbook. - How to compare the costs and benefits: evaluation of the economic evidence
Explains the usefulness and relevance of economics in clinical practice guidelines. It provides information on how to assess the cost-effectiveness of the proposed guidelines, and then discusses whether the chosen alternative is economically feasible .
A guide to the development, evaluation and implementation of clinical practice guidelines.
Newsgroups and discussion groups
- Cochrane Email Discussion Lists
View via the Internet resources link. - Evidence-Based Health
This list is for teachers and practitioners in health related fields; to announce meetings and courses; stimulate discussion; air controversies and aid the implementation of EBH. - EBM Discussion Lists