Evidence Based Medicine Tutorial
This tutorial will take you through the process of conducting an evidence based literature search.
You may already be familiar with searching the literature using databases such as Medline, but there are a range of other information resources that can help you to evaluate and critically appraise the quality of the research that you are finding.
The tutorial assumes that you have completed the Medline tutorial. You will need to search Medline at the end of the tutorial. Please allow an hour to complete the tutorial.
What is Evidence Based Medicine?
Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) is the:
use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients...[it] means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research.
Sackett, D.L. et al (1996). Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn't. BMJ, 312, 71-72.
Tutorial aims and learning outcomes.
Aim:
To help you to identify and apply "the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research."
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this tutorial, you will:
- be able to formulate a clinical search question using the PICO formula
- have an understanding of the Levels of Evidence
- be able to identify the key sources of evidence based information
- be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the different resources
- be able to conduct searches in a range of evidence based information resources
- be able to undertake an advanced Medline search using the Clinical Queries filters
The following EBM Quiz will test your knowledge on evidence based information sources and your ability to search for evidence based research. You will then be able to continue with the rest of the tutorial. To skip to a specific section of the tutorial, click on Show All at the top of the page.
Click below to return to your module pages:
