Research Guides: Evidence Based Practice: Finding the Best Evidence

Referring to an Evidence Pyramid during the article selection process can help you remember how the domain of the question being asked impacts article selection.

"Evidence Pyramid" by Dartmouth Biomedical Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/c.php?g=249245&p=3701848.

Synthesized Research

Synthesized research sources appraise the quality of studies and often make recommendations for practice. These could be systematic reviews, meta-analyses, or critically-appraised topics (evidence syntheses).

Cochrane Library
Detailed, structured topic reviews of hundreds of articles. Teams of experts complete comprehensive literature reviews, evaluate the literature, and present summaries of the findings of the best studies.
PubMed
Conduct your search and then use the "Article types" filter on the left to select "Systematic Reviews".
MEDLINE via Ovid
Enter your search query. Click on the “Additional Limits” button; select “Systematic Reviews” under “Publication Types.”
CINAHL Complete
Enter your search query. Click on "Advanced Search"; select "Systematic Review" from the "Publication Type" box.
DynaMed
Contains clinically-oriented, evidence-based summaries written by medical experts for point-of-care use by physicians, medical students, nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists and other health care professionals.
UpToDate
A clinical information resource which offers up-to-date, fully-referenced expert answers to patient-care, diagnosis, and treatment questions.

Primary Research

Primary research databases are used to find original studies. Evidence is not always available via filtered resources. It is possible to use specific search strategies to achieve the highest possible level of evidence.

PubMed
Click on "Clinical Queries" (under "PubMed Tools"). This specialized search is intended for clinicians and is your fastest way to conduct an evidence-based search for a research article. Pull-down menus allow search results to be filtered by your type of clinical question, and to choose a more sensitive (Broad) or more specific (Narrow) search.
Alternately, conduct your search and then use the "Article types" filter on the left to select the type of study that offers the highest level of evidence given your specific clinical question.
MEDLINE via Ovid
Clinical Queries is searchable in Ovid; click on the "Additional Limits" button.
CINAHL Complete
Conduct your search then click on "Advanced Search" to see limit options; choose a filter from the "Clinical Queries" box.