Filtered Resources
Filtered resources appraise the quality of studies and often make recommendations for practice.
Unfiltered Resources
Evidence is not always available via filtered resources. Searching the primary literature may be required. Database search strategies can be used to achieve the highest possible level of evidence.
Background Information/Expert Opinion
Quality of evidence is variable.
These databases search a variety of filtered information sources: TRIP database, EBM Reviews
The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Consists of detailed, structured topic reviews of hundreds of articles. Teams of experts complete comprehensive literature reviews, evaluate the literature, and present summaries of the findings of the best studies. Published by the International Cochrane Collaboration.
National Guideline Clearinghouse
A comprehensive database of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and related documents produced by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, in partnership with the American Medical Association and the American Association of Health Plans. Updated weekly. Note: Guideline evidence varies from expert opinion to high levels of evidence.
DynaMed™ is a clinical reference tool created by physicians for physicians and other health care professionals for use at the point-of-care. With clinically organized summaries for more than 3,200 topics, DynaMed provides the latest content and resources with validity, relevance and convenience, making DynaMed an excellent resource for answering clinical questions during practice.
Evidence-based topics and search engine from UK-based National Institute for Health and Care Excellence; emphasis on public UK sources (i.e. NHS).
BestBETS: Best Evidence Topics
BETs were developed in the Emergency Department of Manchester Royal Infirmary, UK, to provide rapid evidence-based answers to real-life clinical questions, using a systematic approach to reviewing the literature.
The editors of this journal screen the top 100+ clinical journals and identify studies that are methodologically sound and clinically relevant. An enhanced abstract, with conclusions clearly stated, and a commentary are provided for each selected article. Published by the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine.
Bandolier is an independent journal about evidence-based healthcare published in the UK. It includes "information about evidence of effectiveness (or lack of it), and put[s] the results forward as simple bullet points of those things that worked and those that did not: a bandolier with bullets. Information comes from systematic reviews, meta-analyses, randomised trials, and from high quality observational studies."
To limit your Ovid MEDLINE search to the best evidence-producing studies: Click the Edit Limits button, then check the "Clinical Queries" box and click Customize Limits at the bottom of the page. Select the type of query from the list, enter your search terms, and click Search. To get systematic reviews, use the Edit Limits button to check the "Subject Subsets" box.
To limit your PubMed search to the best evidence-producing studies, click on "Clinical Queries" (in the center column of the screen) before typing your search terms. Alternatively, search all of PubMed while using specific phrases to get specific types of articles.
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature)
To limit your search to the best evidence-producing studies: Enter your search term at the top of the page. Scroll down to "Clinical Queries" (on the left side of the screen). Four study filters - therapy, diagnosis, etiology, prognosis - are provided, and you may indicate whether you wish your search to be more sensitive (i.e., include most relevant articles but probably including some less relevant ones) or more specific (i.e., including mostly relevant articles but probably omit a few). Click the Search button in the bottom right of the page. Tip: Get specific types of articles by scrolling down to "Publication Type".
CADTH Strings Attached provides search strings for retrieving systematic reviews, meta-analyses, health technology assessments, randomized controlled trials, and guidelines from PubMed and MEDLINE.
Full-text electronic books. Search via our A-Z list.
Adapted from EBM Pyramid and EBM Page Generator. (c) Copyright 2006-2011. Trustees of Dartmouth College and Yale University. All Rights Reserved.
Produced by Jan Glover, David Izzo, Karen Odato and Lei Wang.
