Searching the Literature for Evidence-Based Answers: Home

Information overload, impossible to keep up with everything

• 23,347 CINAHL articles using nursing as a keyword in 2018
• 35,688 PubMed articles using nursing as a keyword in 2018

Finding information that is relevant to specific clinical cases

• EBN searching is used for finding answers to clinical cases that are NOT routine
• This type of research method is not needed for most routine clinical cases, such as patients with colds

Finding information that is relevant to research needs in classes

• Using this method follows and reinforces the research process
• Helps target specific information to help with patient care
• Following this method simplifies research efforts for papers

Learning the process for this method of searching for information is time consuming at first, but with practice can be faster

Evidence-based practice is a process that starts with a clinical encounter, and ends with an answer.

The process is summed up as the Five A’s:

The library’s involvement consists primarily of the first three a’s: assessing, asking, and acquiring.

• Assessing – Review the situation, determine what is needed, develop knowledge about the problem
• Asking – Use the information found from assessing the situation to determine specifically what to search for 
• Acquiring – Search through the available resources to look for information that may be used to resolve the situation