Research Utilization and Evidence-Based Practice | publication types

Nurses in clinical practice, especially those in advanced practice roles, with more clinical decision making responsibility, need to be able to critically evaluate the evidence.

Being able to evaluate methodology goes hand in hand with understanding how to create a search strategy. A subject search in a database like CINAHL or MEDLINE may retrieve:

• ideas, opinions, editorials
• a research article
• a letter to the editor
• a case study
• any of a number of other publication types

But an evidence-based approach to searching-- one that applies more rigorous criteria--retrieves higher quality research because the search has been limited to research articles using higher quality methodologies. The most clinically relevant material published is found at the top of the "evidence pyramid."

Link to the Evidence Pyramid from the SUNY downstate medical center:
Online at: http://library.downstate.edu/ebmdos/3ebm100.htm

< BACK | NEXT >