Step 1: Defining a Clinical Question
Step 2: Searching for Research Evidence
Step 3: Evaluating the Evidence
Step 4: Relating the Evidence to the Client
Step 5: Evaluating Outcomes of EBP
Read more about the Evidence-Based Practice Process in Audiology in the following article:
Hickson, Laplante-Lévesque, A., & Wong, L. (2013). Evidence-based practice in audiology: Rehabilitation options for adults with hearing impairment. American Journal of Audiology, 22(2), 329–331. https://doi.org/10.1044/1059-0889(2013/12-0085)
Permalink: https://csu-sjsu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CALS_SJO/1nj5q0c/cdi_proquest_miscellaneous_1512557959
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Searching for evidence in a bibliographic literature database is a balance of trial and error, intuition, and practice. If you take the time to start off right, keep an open mind, and follow the appropriate steps, you’re bound to find success. Use the ABCDE Research Inquiry Framework (Price, et al., 2020) to approach literature searching in an effective and reproducible manner.
Price, C., Kudchadkar, S. R., Basyal, P. S., Nelliot, A., Smith, M., Friedman, M., & Needham, D. M. (2020). Librarian integration into health care conferences: A case report. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 108(2), 278. https://dx.doi.org/10.5195%2Fjmla.2020.803.
The framework below uses ABCDE to guide you through the searching process.
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Assess the topic, scope, and goals of your project. If your goal is a literature review, understand the type of literature review and the methodology involved. This step is a good time to do some preliminary background searching to get an idea of what’s already been done. Hint: look for a question development framework that will help you frame your topic.
Sometimes referred to as clinical inquiry, formulating your research topic includes:
...asking the right questions in the right way, finding the best available evidence, and assessing what practice change may be needed...
From Wyant, T. (2018). A spirit of inquiry leads to evidence-based answers to practice questions. ONS Voice. https://voice.ons.org/news-and-views/a-spirit-of-inquiry-leads-to-evidence-based-answers-to-practice-questions.
You can get started off right by first:
Keywords are the words used in an article title, abstract, or other text field in a database. Keyword searching, or natural language searching, is how most people search for information and is often sufficient. One drawback of searching with keywords is that the words that you use must match the terms used by an author.
To remedy this problem, a complete keyword search strategy will include multiple spellings and synonyms that represent the concept. Keyword searching is also useful when attempting to identify literature that may not have been indexed with controlled vocabulary terms, for any variety of reasons.
Start by keeping a list in a document.
How will you explain that you supported your topic with evidence? Surely not by saying "I Googled it!"
It is important to complete a thorough, documented literature search. Don't be afraid to call on the help of a librarian. A librarian can help you determine where to look and how to combine your chosen keywords for an efficient search.
There are some bibliographic literature databases that will have evidence in the form of clinical trials, systematic reviews, and more. Here are a few places you can try first:
PubMed is from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Center for Biotechnology Information. It contains over 30 million records and includes the database MEDLINE. In PubMed, you will find clinical trials, systematic reviews, practice guidelines, meta-analyses, and more. Check out PubMed's Clinical Queries for pre-filtered searches for high-quality evidence.
1300+ full-text journals available to support nursing and allied health professionals, students, educators and researchers. This resource also provides access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, evidence-based care sheet and quick lesson disease overviews, and continuing education modules.
TRIP Database is a clinical search engine that will help you search in PICO format and point you to guidelines, trials, studies, and more.
Browse our databases list by subject (https://library.sjsu.edu/az.php). Meet with your librarian to determine relevant resources for your topic.
Documenting your search process will help you remember what you did and make your search transparent and reproducible.
Use a spreadsheet or document to capture:
In addition to the above type of documentation, you may also wish to use a citation management program, like PaperPile or Zotero. This will help you capture, store, and organize the sources you've chosen to read. It will also help you cite them later, by incorporating them into your manuscript or paper in the citation format of your choice.
First, it's important to understand how to tackle the information that can be found in a research paper. This open access article from Carey et al. presents ten simple rules for understanding a research paper.
Carey, M. A., Steiner, K. L., & Petri, W. A., Jr (2020). Ten simple rules for reading a scientific paper. PLoS Computational Biology, 16(7), e1008032. DOI link: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008032; PubMed Central Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7392212/
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The above section describing the ABCDE Research Inquiry Framework was adapted with permission from the creator, Carrie Price, Health Sciences Librarian at the Albert S. Cook Library at Towson University in Towson, MD.
From ASHA.org:
This section of the ASHA.org website includes The EBP Process, EBP Toolkit, Evidence Maps, EBP Catalog, a Glossary of key terms in EBP, and Tutorials.
You can use the PICO(T) to help develop your topic. The PICO(T) question is the foundation of Evidence Based Practice.