MSK Library Guides: Evidence-Based Practice: Finding the Evidence

Searching the Literature

Use your PICO question to create a search strategy, where each component of the PICO is a piece of the search. The more components you add to your search the narrower your search will become.

Use Boolean Operators to combine terms. AND should be used to combine PICO components and OR should be used to combine related terms within a component (e.g. smoking OR tobacco use).

Databases

Cochrane Library
Provides reliable and up-to-date information from seven different databases on the effects of interventions in healthcare. Published on a quarterly basis and designed to provide information and evidence to support decisions taken in healthcare and to inform those receiving care.
Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) EBP Database
Allows you to simultaneously search a wide range of summarized and appraised health care evidence across seven publication types including Evidence Based Recommended Practices, Evidence Summaries, Best Practice Information Sheets, Systematic Reviews, Consumer Information Sheets, Systematic Review Protocols, and Technical Reports.
PubMed
PubMed is a search service of the National Library of Medicine. It includes references from MEDLINE and MEDLINE in Process, as well as a small number of references not included in these databases. Use PubMed Clinical Queries to focus your PICO question for relevant clinical results.
EMBASE
Embase.com is updated daily and contains biomedical and pharmacological information. This database allows you to search both Embase and unique MEDLINE records simultaneously. Use the Embase PICO Search to find clinically relevant results.
CINAHL
Covers nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health, and the allied health fields. It offers access to health care articles, books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, educational software, and audiovisual materials.
TRIP (Turning Research Into Practice)
The aim of the TRIP database is to answer clinical questions using evidence based medicine. It provides high quality evidence based literature available on the web.
PEDro
PEDro is the Physiotherapy Evidence Database. PEDro is a free database of over 30,000 randomized trials, systematic reviews and clinical practice guidelines in physiotherapy.

PICO Searching Tools

Below are specific query forms that use the PICO framework. You can easily plug in the parts of your PICO into the specific fields and it will create the search strategy for you.

Embase: PICO Search

The PICO search form is where you can build searches using PICO (Patient, Intervention), Comparison/Control, Outcome) framework. You can browse Emtree directly on the search page and apply the best Emtree term, along with synonyms, to each of the different elements in the PICO framework.

How to search Embase using the PICO search

PubMed: Clinical Queries

This tool uses predefined filters to help you quickly refine PubMed searches on clinical or disease-specific topics. To use this tool, enter your search terms in the search bar and select filters before searching.

How to search for clinical studies using Clinical Queries

TRIP Database: PICO

Our PICO search works on a contingency search basis. So, assuming the user enters 4 search terms (a P, I, C and O) we do an initial search looking for the terms in the title only. If there aren’t many results we repeat with P, I and C as a title search and O as title and text. If there are still too few, we do P and I as title and C and O as title and text etc.

How the PICO search works in TRIP

Creating a Search

This easy-to-follow tutorial from the Librarians at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, in partnership with the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEBM), walks you through an example turning search terms into a search strategy.

Finding the Evidence Resources

CEBM Finding the Evidence
Finding the Evidence: A How-To Guide
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Centre for Evidence Based Medicine Oxford
Getting to the gold: How to search for the best evidence.
Fineout‐Overholt, E., Hofstetter, S., Shell, L., & Johnston, L. (2005). Teaching EBP: Getting to the gold: How to search for the best evidence. Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing, 2(4), 207-211.

Web Sites

Evidence-Based Medicine
Published by the American College of Physicians and BMJ Publishing Group, it expands the coverage of ACP Journal Club to include family practice, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology. You can view the table of contents by issue and the full text of some entries.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) mission is to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. As 1 of 12 agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, AHRQ supports research that helps people make more informed decisions and improves the quality of health care services
Levels of Evidence for Cancer Screening and Prevention Studies–for health professionals (PDQ®)
The National Cancer Institute's PDQ Screening and Prevention Editorial Board summarizes its understanding of the level of the evidence for the magnitude of the effect (including absolute and relative risks) for both the benefits and the harms of implementing cancer screening and prevention interventions. The Editorial Board uses the term “Level of Evidence” to refer to the certainty of its estimate of the health effects of implementing the intervention in question.
Bandolier
Bandolier is also a source of high quality information for many patients and their carers, as well as for organisations that commission and pay for healthcare.
BestBETS
BETs were developed in the Emergency Department of Manchester Royal Infirmary, UK, to provide rapid evidence-based answers to real-life clinical questions, using a systematic approach to reviewing the literature.