This database searches across a wide range of summarized and appraised evidence. This comprehensive range of resources includes records across five publication types: Evidence Based Recommended Practices, Evidence Summaries, Best Practice Information Sheets, Systematic Reviews, and Systematic Review Protocols.
What is evidence-based practice (EBP)?"Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the conscientious and judicious use of current best evidence in conjunction with clinical expertise and patient values to guide health care decisions" (Titler 2008). It is associated with other terms including:
One principle of evidence-based practice is the use of the best available research to inform clinical decision making. The evidence hierarchy demonstrates different levels of research types. The higher in the pyramid the more potentially reliable the results are, but also the less common.
You may be asked to evaluate the research you use in evidence based practice projects, and there are a couple ways to do that.
Critical appraisal is the process of systematically evaluating research using established and transparent methods. In critical appraisal, health professionals use validated checklists/worksheets as tools to guide their assessment of the research.
Equator stands for "Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research" and collects and organizes guidelines/checklists for various types of studies. Below is the main homepage of the Equator network, where they list some of the commonly used reporting guidelines. You can use these reporting guidelines to evaluate how well a study reported on its methods.
There are a couple forms of literature reviews. You may be asked to find one of these types of literature reviews, or you may be asked or may want to write one of these types.
Also called traditional reviews, narrative reviews are articles that seek to provide an overview of a topic or show the authors knowledge of the topic and where their research fits in. In a traditional literature review the author will read widely in the literature around their topic and then select articles to include based on their understanding of what sources are important. Therefore a narrative review does not have a particular methodology, as compared to systematic reviews.
Evidence Synthesis is a methodology for systematically reviewing the literature on a topic to come to either a evidence-based clinical decision (in the case of systematic reviews) or identify opportunities and gaps in the literature (in the case of a scoping review). There are many kinds of evidence synthesis review types, but systematic and scoping reviews are the most common. Evidence Synthesis refers to rigorous, well-documented methods of identifying, selecting, and combining results from multiple studies. Often times Evidence Synthesis projects are undertaken by a team and take a year or more to complete.
These are a newer approach to reviews that are often assigned as a project for a class and do not have the intent to be published. They fall somewhere between narrative reviews and systematic reviews, because they use some systematic search principles but do not follow the rigor of a full evidence synthesis project.
The integrative review is a form of Evidence Synthesis. It is a methodology for comprehensively reviewing the literature around a topic or research question. The paper by Whittemore and Knaff (2005) breaks down the Integrative review methodology, and the more recent book A Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting an Integrative Review provides guidance as well.
Concept analysis is defined as "the dissection of a concept into simpler elements to promote clarity while providing mutual understanding within nursing" (Foley et al.)
It is a common methodology in Nursing, and there are a couple approaches to concept analysis that have been popularized. One popular approach was created by Walker and Avant in their book Strategies for Theory Construction in Nursing. You can explore other methodologies in concept analysis in the article Beyond the classics: A comprehensive look at concept analysis methods in nursing education and research.
Critical Appraisal section inspired by MGH Institute Research Guide.