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*Evidence-Based Medicine Resources

This guide focused on the "acquire" stage of evidence-based medicine and the resources and search strategies to support this process.

Introduction

What does it mean to search for scholarly literature? In your research classes, you should use article databases, such as PubMed, to search for scholarly, peer-reviewed literature rather than relying on a general search engine like Google. Here's why:

  • These databases contain millions of journal articles, most indexed with specific terms (such as MeSH, Emtree, or Subject), which help make your searches more focused. 
  • They contain primary & secondary literature: articles that describe experiments of various kinds (primary literature) or studies that look at a group of experiments to see if there is broad support for the results of individual studies (secondary literature).

Context for Searching for (Acquiring) Evidence

Acquiring evidence is a key part of evidence-based practice, and while there are many kinds of evidence and information you might want to find, this short article (14 minute read time) by Gabriel Rada makes a clear case for why to look at systemic review, trustworthy guidelines, and point-of-care tools in combination in addition to your other research evidence sources.

Rada, G. (n.d.). What is the best evidence and how to find it . BMJ Best Practice. Retrieved September 2, 2020, from https://bestpractice.bmj.com/info/us/toolkit/discuss-ebm/what-is-the-best-evidence-and-how-to-find-it/ 

This section and the sub-pages are based on the the "Searching the Biomedical Literature" section of the Dental Hygiene Research Guide at the University of Michigan Library.

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