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NURS 350

Evidence-Based Nursing Guide


 

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Explained

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research Explained: This page from Northern Arizona University is helpful for understanding the difference between qualitative and quantitative research
More on Qualitative vs. Quantitative: See page 5 of this document
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary sources Explained: From University of Illinois Chicago, a brief description of the different publication types
More on Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary sources: A more lengthy and detailed description, from a syllabus out of Cal Poly Pomona

What is Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)?

Let's dissect the phrase:

Evidence-Based = Substantiated data as foundation
Practice = Utilizing the knowledge in the clinical setting

Figuring out the meaning of Evidence-Based Practice is fairly simple, but in order to find substantiated data to put into clinical practice, it is essential to use the proper resources. Proper resources would include:

  • Systematic Reviews: are reviews "of a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. Statistical methods (meta-analysis) may or may not be used to analyze and summarize the results of the included studies (U S Department of Veterans Affairs Glossary of Technology Assessment Terms)"
  • Meta-analyses: are "the use of statistical techniques in a systematic review to integrate the results of included studies. Sometimes used as a synonym for systematic reviews, where the review includes meta-analysis (U S Department of Veterans Affairs Glossary of Technology Assessment Terms)"
  • Consensus Statements/Guidelines: Consider using the National Guidelines Clearing House made available through U. S. Government agencies.
  • Articles from journals specializing in evidence-based medicine: When looking at these articles, there is a hierarchy related to the publication type:
    • *Randomized Controlled Trial - Depending on the sample size and overall study design, this may provide as weighty evidence as a systematic review.
    • Clinical Trial
    • Review
    • Case Study: Least preferred because provides evidence from only single case (but with rare conditions may be only info. available).


Evidence-Based Practice Websites/Article:

EBM Guidebook from the University of California, Irvine
National Guidelines Clearing House
Florida State University EBM Tutorial
University of Minnesota Guide on Evidence Based Nursing
University of North Carolina Evidence Based Medicine Tutorial
Systematic Review Made Simple for Nurses



Evidence-Based Practice E-book:

Fast facts for evidence-based practice : implementing EBP in a nutshell: Great book that you may want to take a look at.

Need Help Picking a Topic... Check out these Links



Finding Library Materials


The snapshot of the Library Homepage below highlights the Find menu which is a good starting point to find various library resources, such as books, articles, journals, subject guides, etc.

find button


Starting your Research

You may want to start out your research by finding background information.
Reference Books are Excellent Sources of Background Information. Print reference books can be found in the Catalog. Online Reference Materials can be found in:

After gathering background information on your topic, you will want to focus your search in databases to find relevant information on your topic. If you are doing research from off-campus, you will need to log-on to use databases and other online resources licensed by FSU. You can use your MyFSU username and password to log-on to the databases. Click here for more information on off-campus database access.



Find Articles and More Using Databases

Remember the path to Find Articles:
Library homepage > Find > Articles > Health and Medical Resources (or whatever topic area you're after)

Some selected Databases:

Stat!Ref Good place to find background information from reference books (tertiary sources)
As stated above, Stat!Ref is an excellent starting point for researching medical topics. Enter your search term into the search box and you will obtain a rank-ordered list of results taken from various medical encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, and other medical reference books. A very helpful feature of this database is the Related Concepts box to the left of the results that will provide you with synonyms for your topic. These related concepts or synonyms can be used to enhance your searches in this database, as well as the other databases. This database also can be used for finding evidence-based information by clicking on the Advanced Search and selecting ACP PIER: The Physicians' Information and Education Resource as the only source you are searching. According to the Stat!Ref search page on 9/11/2007, ACP PIER "was named as the leading evidence-based medicine point-of-care tool in a study presented at the South Central Chapter MLA meeting."

Click here for a Stat!Ref Database Guide.

Health & Wellness Resource Center
Find information from medical encyclopedias, journal articles, pamphlets, videos, and more using this database that is filled with information oriented towards health care consumers. This is a nice place to get a general overview of different diseases and conditions, as well as medications.

PubMed
This is the largest biomedical database, with over 20 million citations. To find nursing research in this database, the most efficient route may be to:

  • Click on the Limits Tab
  • Type in your search terms
  • Under Type of Article select all of these to find Primary Literature: Clinical Trial, Randomized Controlled Trial, and Comparative Study.
  • Then, under Subsets select Nursing journals
  • Click on GO

*Note, if you are getting too many results, you may want to scroll to the bottom of the Limits screen, click on the pull-down menu under Default Tag and select Title or Title and Abstract so your keywords are only searched within those fields

To get the full text of the articles, you must click into the PubMed record, then click on the Find It link. For more information on getting the full text of articles, see the Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles section below.
Click here for a PubMed tutorial.

CINAHL
The Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) currently gathers information from approximately 3000 journals. Use the CINAHL Headings subtab to get more subject-specific information on various topics. When you have found your subject heading, you may click on it to break your topic down by subdivision. To specifically find articles that are likely written by nurses, and are likely qualitative in nature, click on the Search Options link on the right-hand side of the results (or these options will also show from the main search page), and go to Publication Type and select Research, and go under Journal Subset and select Nursing. As in PubMed, to find Primary Literature, under Publication Type, you can select Clinical Trial, Randomized Controlled Trial, and Case Study.
*Note - to search all 3 publication types at the same time, you must hold down the CTRL key when selecting

To get the full text of articles when using CINAHL, click on the Find It link beneath the record. For more information on getting the full text of articles, see the Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles section below.

Cochrane Library Main component of this database is systematic reviews (secondary literature)
The Cochrane Library is a valuable resource for evidence-based medicine. The Systematic Reviews in this library contain pooled data from numerous studies on a particular topic. The pooled data has been synthesized and scrutinized to arrive at a statistically valid conclusion regarding the effectiveness of a treatment/procedure. This library is growing, so be sure to check back at a later time if you are not currently finding information on your topic. You can search using keywords, such as disease names and treatments, or browse Cochrane Reviews by topic. *Please note that Cochrane Review Records can also be found in PubMed. If you find a Cochrane Review in PubMed, open the Cochrane Database and search for the review within Cochrane to get the full text.

Cochrane database tutorial (requires free log-on)
Advanced searching tutorial (also requires free log-on)

Trip Database
This well known database is freely available on the Internet and provides evidence-based information. Search the entire database, or proceed to the specialist site of interest.



Find Articles in Nursing Journals Relevant to Evidence-Based Practice:

Instead of cross-searching numerous journals at the same time, as you are doing in the databases above, you can search the contents of individual journals such as:

Evidence-based nursing
Clinical nursing research
Applied Nursing Research
Biological research for nursing
Journal of nursing scholarship
Journal of research in nursing
Nursing research
Western journal of nursing research
Scholarly inquiry for nursing practice
ANS, Advances in nursing science



Obtaining the Full-Text of Articles

In some databases you will see an option for a Text version of the document or a PDF version. In general, the PDF version is preferable as it is most often a scanned version of the original and will therefore contain the graphics. When e-mailing, printing, or saving a group of articles, be sure to select the full-text or PDF option if available.

Some databases contain little full-text, but allow you to link out to Ferris' holdings or the interlibrary loan request form. You will notice the Find it! links following individual citations that will indicate the availability of the article online, in the library, or the need to interlibrary loan the article. Click on the Go button and you will be taken to the online version, library holdings record, or interlibrary loan form to obtain the article you desire. See image below.

Sample Article Link-Out:

After clicking on Find It a window similar to the one below will come up.




Evaluating your Articles

Before requesting articles from interlibrary loan, please review the abstract and make sure that the article is on-topic. Also, please insure that the article is in a language that you speak, as some databases, such as PubMed index many non-English articles that have abstracts written in English. After you have evaluated the topical coverage and language of the article, please do not hesitate to request it through interlibrary loan if it is not available on campus.



Other Useful Library Links

Library Homepage

Using the Find Menu from the top of the Library Homepage you can find:

Also, you may be interested in these links:

Any more questions? Contact: Alison (Ali) Konieczny / Email / Phone: 231-591-3696 / Office: FLITE 315

Don't forget, you are welcome to come to the Oval Information Desk and ask for help any time. You can also call us 231-591-3602 or chat with us.

Last update: May 28, 2010





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