Help finding evidence based practice literature

Have you talked with your school librarian? Your librarian can help you learn how to best use the library resources available to you.

The 2 main databases for nursing literature are CINAHL and OVID. Some journals provide their fulltext articles to CINAHL: other journals provide their articles to OVID. Does your school library provide access to those databases?

Go to one of those databases and start experimenting with keywords that relate to your topic. Narrow your search by using the advanced features of those databases (e.g. limit your search to the last 5 years, to journals in English, etc.) Then explore the articles that your search yields. There is no magic to it: it can take considerable time to look through the articles until you find what you are looking for. It's also possible, that you will not find EXACTLY what you are looking for because it doesn't exist. Not every topic in nursing has recent solid research evidence that is handy to find.

What databases have you been using? What keywords have you used?

I have used EBSCOHOST and included CINAHL and a host of others. Keywords I have searched are nutrition, men, evidence based. I have spent alot of time and am convinced that what I'm looking for does not exist. I will use what I have found. I believe the instructors may not have realized that the literature was lacking in the 4 areas that we were to choose from. However, my instructors are pretty awesome, and I have no doubts that they will work with me on my article of choice (0:

I find it difficult to believe that you're having trouble finding studies on nutrition and blood pressure. I think what might be frustrating you is how you view evidenced-based practice and what the research that can guide it looks like. You may not be recognizing studies that are applicable.

Studies on nursing interventions and education are outnumbered by medical studies. However, an evidence-based practice can be built from medical studies! When one medical study indicates that something (it will be specified) in a person's diet is a statistically significant factor in increasing blood pressure, that can guide a nurse's practice. After reviewing the study, the nurse can incorporate the nutrition teaching (as guided by the study) into education to the patient.

You used the keyword "men." You really don't have to do that. When you review the article, look at the breakdown in the sample. When doing research on nutrition and blood pressure, the authors of the article will most likely do some statistics related to gender.

You also used the keyword "evidence based." That's redundant, as all research is evidence! Just some research is more credible than others.

Also, if those are your only keywords, you need to expand it a bit. Make a list of all the words that apply to your topic, and search, search, search. I noticed that you didn't include the keyword "blood pressure" in your list!

It might help you to pick a study whose title most likely fits your topic of interest, then read the abstract to know if you need to look at the article itself. Most research is organized in a standard fashion. Once you get used to reviewing studies, you'll know exactly where you need to look to find the information you need to determine if the article is right for you.

I tend to be a power searcher, and these techniques have worked for me. Good luck!

I would also like to know if somebody has a really good resource for strictly evidenced-based articles/information.

CINHAHL does have an feature in which it indexes "evidence-based care sheets." It takes data from many different studies and incorporates them into a single care sheet. I'm not sure if they can be accessed directly or if it requires a search in which the care sheet is one of the hits.

Also, there is a national clearinghouse website that provides guidelines for many different topics of interest. Again, these guidelines are written and submitted by schools, hospitals, etc. all over the country and published. Each guideline provides information about the levels of evidence used to build it. The guidelines are not studies; they are derived from a variety of studies, just like CINAHL's "care sheets."

http://www.guideline.gov/browse/by-topic.aspx

Those sources aside, all well-designed studies that can be generalized to our patient populations can be used to build EBP. EBP is not something that exists by itself in a study. A practice is built from a number of studies. After all, the authors of CINAHL's care sheets and the clearinghouse guidelines searched for applicable primary source studies, read them, and built the secondary sources from primary research. We, as future nurses, can do the same.