University Library: Evidence-Based Practice: Where should I search?

Selecting a database

The Evidence Pyramid provides a guide to levels of quality and the amount of research available at that level.

Bibliographic databases provide access to primary literature of all levels of the pyramid.

Point of Care Resources are secondary sources that bring together high-quality evidence to provide guidelines or recommendations for practice.

Walden University. (2020). Levels of evidence pyramid. https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/healthevidence/evidencepyramid

The Medical Research Library of Brooklyn: SUNY Medical Center. (2014). The Evidence Pyramid. https://guides.downstate.edu/c.php?g=856794&p=6152125

PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed is the free internet platform for searching over 37 million citations for biomedical literature from Medline, life science journals, and online books.

FiNDit
Simple search of most library resources.

CINAHL Plus with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Core research tool for nursing and allied health literature.
EBSCOhost Using the CINAHL/MeSH Subject Headings Feature Tutorial
Embase This link opens in a new window Embase is a subscription database from Elsevier that provides biomedicine literature. Embase contains journal articles, conference papers and abstracts and reports in biomedicine.
Medline (Ovid) This link opens in a new window
Provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and pre-clinical sciences.
SPORTDiscus with Full Text This link opens in a new window
The world's most comprehensive full text source for sports, fitness, health and sports medicine literature.
APA PsycArticles This link opens in a new window
A major source of full-text, peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific articles in psychology, from the APA and affiliates.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Abstract and citation database of peer reviewed literature in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Use Scopus metrics and analytical tools to identify authoritative research and experts.
Scopus FAQs
Cochrane Library This link opens in a new window
A regularly updated collection of seven evidence-based medicine databases containing high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window A multidisciplinary, global citation database covering a broad range of subject areas including the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities. Useful for tracking where, by whom and how often an article has been cited.

UpToDate This link opens in a new window
UpToDate is an evidence-based clinical decision support tool, providing key clinical and drug information at point of care, synthesizing the latest evidence to recommend best practices for thousands of medical conditions.
How to register for the UpToDate app
AusDI This link opens in a new window
Australian medicines information resource designed to help healthcare professionals make confident clinical decisions, providing access to latest drug monographs, pharmaceutical company product information, consumer medicine information documents, product summaries and drug product images.
AusDI Help Centre
BMJ Best Practice This link opens in a new window
Clinical decision support tool for health professionals, providing step-by-step guidance on diagnosis, treatment and prevention.
Therapeutic Guidelines This link opens in a new window
Therapeutic Guidelines is an Australian evidence-based resource which recommends therapies for common disorders seen in clinical practice.
Australian Medicines Handbook (AMH) This link opens in a new window
Concise, up-to-date source of independent drug information to facilitate effective, rational, safe, and economical prescribing and dispensing recommendations.
How to use the AMH

Boolean, truncation, phrase searching and wildcards

The Boolean search technique allows you to combine keywords with the operators 'AND', 'OR' and 'NOT'. They connect your search keywords/concepts together to either narrow or broaden your search results when searching databases. Using these operators, you are able to make your search more precise and save time.

AND: Narrows your search, combines different concepts, and retrieves results which contain both/all keywords.
OR: Broadens your search, combines similar concepts (synonyms), and retrieves results which contain either or both/all keywords. When using 'OR' wrap your synonyms in brackets.
NOT: Narrows your search, excludes unwanted terms from your search.

boolean operators illustrated

The truncation search technique allows you to search databases for variations and plurals of a word all at once. Using truncation will help you search faster because you do not have to manually type multiple endings of a word. The symbol for truncation is usually an asterisk (*), placed at the end of the root word, where the spelling of the word could change.
Note: Be careful where you place the *.
The keyword truncation 'commu*' will search commune,commute, communicate, community etc. which are unrelated words.
The keyword truncation 'touris*' will search tourist, tourists, tourism etc. but not tour or tours.

educat* = educate, education, educated, educational
adoles* = adolescent, adolescents, adolescence
contamina* = contamination, contaminants, contaminated, contaminate, contaminates

Phrase search technique allows you to search databases for an exact phrase. Using quotation marks (" ") around your search term will help you do a more precise search as it will only return results that contain the exact words in the same order.
Note: Only use phrase searching on widely accepted phrases. Be careful placing too many words in quotations, the database might not find any results.

"social media"
"climate change"
"job satisfaction"

Wildcard search technique allows you to search databases for alternate spellings and variations of a word by replacing a letter with question mark (?). It is useful for retrieving results with both US and UK spelling variations of a word. Using wildcard will make your search quicker because you do not have to manually type different spellings of a word.
Note: Wildcard symbols (? #, !) can vary by databases. Please check individual database help pages.

wom?n = woman, women

anal?se = analyse, analyze

Colo?r = color or colour

The key to successful database searching is to practice and use common search techniques along with Boolean searching. It is important to learn these so that you will be able to quickly retrieve relevant information. These videos by University of South Carolina Upstate Library explain some of the basic searching tricks and techniques that will enable you to create a more effective search.

Part 1: Boolean operators (AND OR NOT)
Part 2: Boolean & common search techniques

The interactive keyword tool from University of Wollongong helps you identify keywords in your assignment question and create a search string/query that can be copied and pasted into the search box of FiNDIt and most other databases. Scroll to the bottom of the webpage to use the tool.

Interactive Keyword Builder

Evidence-Based Practice

Selecting a database

Boolean, truncation, phrase searching and wildcards

Find & Search

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