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Undergraduate Nursing Resources

Evidence Based Practice Pyramid

PICO worksheet

1. Search Cochrane Database for a Systematic Review

Note: Don't be surprised if there is not a Cochrane Report for your topic.  This database is at the top of the evidence based pyramid and not every topic has been covered in this way.

2. Guidelines

Search to see if any guidelines exist for your topic, here are just a few starting places for guidelines

3. Search for Nursing Research Articles

Journal articles form the core of nursing literature.  Each of these databases focus on a different aspect of Health Care and Nursing Research.  Selecting the correct database, or trying several of them, when starting your research can make a difference in finding the most rigorous, current, and reliable information.

4. Locate Health Statistics

Finding and interpreting health data can be very challenging.  Many factors go into gathering, analyzing, and reporting data.  Some things to think about as you look for data:  

  • Who might gather this data? Does it need to be reported?  Might a government agency or non-profit organization gather?  Where else could one look if the data doesn't have to be reported?  For example, hypertension is diagnosed in the primary care office, and they are not required to report this information. So instead, the CDC asks people if they have ever been told they have high blood pressure.  This isn't an incidence or prevalence per se, but it is the closest we can get to this information for the U.S.
  • It takes time and resources to gather and analyze health data - there can be a lag between collection and availability.  You will want to find the most up-to-date information, but do not be surprised if that data is around 5-10 years old. - if you are not sure you were successful in finding the most recent data, check in with a librarian.
  • Be sure you understand the numbers you are given - are you being shown a raw number, a rate (a measure or frequency measured against another - e.g., a ratio or percentage), an average, a median - while you cannot compare numbers measured differently directly to each other, you can still compare them if you express the differences.

Potential starting points:

Additionally, you can search Google for additional information, e.g., "myocardial infarction" prevalence

Then when looking through the results, think about the credibility and possible biases of the sources and trade up to better sources where you can. For example, look at the hosting websites. In the above search, as I look through the results, I see one comes from Medscape, a source I recommend using for the Microbiology Poster Projects, the NIH website, the CDC, and the National Heart Association - all likely accurate primary sources (the groups that gather the data) of heart-related health data.  If you find health data in other sources, you can look at the references to see if you can get back to the primary source of the data.

Additional Searching Options

Searching tips for finding high quality articles

1. check for subject headings for your topic.  In CINAHL and MEDLINE through EBSCOhost - you can select subject headings from the top blue bar (called MeSH in MEDLINE)

2. Use the advanced search options (by clicking on Advanced Search or 'show more' on the left of the screen under the date slider. For the limiter boxes you can use the CRTL button to select multiple options from the lsit

Helpful limiters In CINAHL - look for check boxes like Any Author is a Nurse, English, Research Article, Randomized Controlled Trial - and limiter boxes:

  • Age Groups
  • Publication Type - e.g. Randomized Controlled Trial or Systematic Review

Helpful limiters in MEDLINE - look for check boxes like Human, English Language, EBM Reviews - and limiter boxes:

  • Age Related
  • Publication Type - e.g.Randomized Controlled Trial or Systematic Review