Boxer Library
There are four things you can check to give you an indication of a systematic review's quality. These are not the only indications of review quality, but they can help you in your decision of whether or not to use a review.
You will be familiar with these resources. These resources can continue to help you as you make your way through your EBP Implementation Project.
For your EBP Implementation project, you will want to find sources that have already synthesized the latest research on your topic. This pyramid of evidence sources can help you understand what level of evidence you will want to look for. For EBP Implementation you will want to focus on sources from Synthesis up to Summaries. This guide will show you how to find systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and clinical practice guidelines.
Image taken from the University of Michigan Nursing guide. Modified from: Haynes RB. Of studies, syntheses, synopses, summaries and systems: the “5S" evolution of services for evidence-based health care decisions. ACP J Club. 2006 Nov-Dec;145(3):A8-9.
You can find reviews like systematic reviews, scoping reviews, meta-analyses, umbrella reviews and more in scholarly literature databases. Most databases don't ONLY have evidence synthesis reviews. The Boxer Library has a video on the best ways to find systematic reviews in common databases:
Provides full text access to hundreds of nursing and allied health journals indexed in the CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature). Additional materials include Evidence-Based Care Sheets and Quick Lessons which provide concise overviews of diseases and conditions and outline the most effective treatment options.
Embase is a database of biomedical literature. It Includes all journals in MEDLINE plus 2,900 more, and covers 11,500+ conferences not found in MEDLINE.
The Cochrane Library allows you to search the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. This will contain only systematic reviews that have been published by Cochrane and follow Cochrane guidelines.
A collection of databases containing high quality, in-depth evidence to assist in healthcare decision making. Includes the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, which provides peer-reviewed systematic reviews and protocols.
Clinical practice guidelines are usually written and published by larger organizations like professional organizations or even governmental organizations. At times, you may also see a large group of practitioners/scholars write them as well. This can make clinical practice guidelines a bit tricky to find because you may have to search around different association and governmental websites. Luckily, there are a few resources that compile clinical practice guidelines.
It is important in EBM/P to use the latest research on a topic. It is worth noting that clinical practice guidelines are not published as often as, say, scholarly articles. This is because often large organizations are synthesizing a large amount of literature to get the best recommendations for a condition, which can take time. It is possible that the latest clinical guideline that is related to your topic is older than you normally would consider for other resource types. For example, the latest guideline on your topic could be older than 5 years. As long as you are confident that this is the most recent guideline, it is okay to use. If you aren't sure, make sure you ask your librarians for help!
