Defining Evidence Based Practice Research
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is patient care backed up by research. It is an approach of practicing medicine with the goal to improve and evaluate patient care, and it requires the judicious integration of best research evidence with the patient's values to make decisions about medical care (NLM, MESH, 2009).
How to Develop a Search Strategy
The library has several databases which can help you find evidence-base articles and answer clinical questions using the PICO format.
After developing your PICO question, follow these steps to develop a search strategy:
- Consider all possible terms for your topic, including synonyms.
- Use the Boolean operator OR to combine your synonyms and broaden your search.
- Use the Boolean operator AND to look for the intersection of the terms to narrow your search.
- Try different combinations of terms, particularly if you have limited results.
- Review search results; critically appraise retrieved articles.
- Consider using limiters for publication types, age, human, and evidence-based practice, etc.
- Revise search as appropriate
Always remember that the more terms you use, the narrower your results will be!!!
