Queen Square Library

Queen Square Library

• Home
• Using the Library
• Services
• Books, Journals & Multimedia
• Archives & Rare Books
• Training
• Databases
• Evidence
  • Guidance from NICE
• Patient Information
• Publishing & Publications
• Guides, Forms & Documents

Evidence: finding the evidence & critical appraisal

Top tools for finding evidence...

• View a list of NICE guidelines relevant to NHNN
• Start with a search of NHS Evidence
• Try a search using the Cochrane Library
• Try a more general search using Healthcare Databases Advanced Search tools  (requires an NHS OpenAthens account)
• For access to these key tools and others, visit the UCLH Healthcare Evidence Resources website (NB: UCLH intranet site - restricted access)

...and other useful tools for finding evidence:

• Bandolier - a full text journal providing advice about treatments and diseases. Information in Bandolier is gathered from reviews of clinical trials.
• BESTBets (UK) - Best Evidence Topics 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.
• BMJ Best Practice - a point of care decision-making tool.
• Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (UK)
• Centre for Evidence-Based Mental Health (UK)
• Centre for Health Economics (UK)
• Clinical Evidence
• ClinicalTrials.gov
• Cochrane Library - the primary source of information about the effectiveness of healthcare interventions. From the Cochrane Collaboration
• Current Controlled Trials
• metaRegister of Controlled Trials (mRCT) (USA) 
• Evidence-Based Neurology (USA)
• NICE: National Institute for Clinical Excellence (UK). Includes the Principles for Best Practice in Clinical Audit
• NiH RePORTER
• National Research Register (UK) 
• National Service Framework for Longterm Conditions (UK) 
• NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (UK) 
• Practice Guidelines (USA) 
• PubMed's Clinical Queries tool - a specialized PubMed tool to focus your search on particular clinical categories (etiology, diagnosis, therapy, prognosis) and to find systematic reviews.
• TRIP database - a tool to bring together 'evidence-based' healthcare resources available across the internet.
• UpToDate - An evidence-based knowledge system authored by physicians to help clinicians make the right decisions at the point of care. Available within the UCL network only.

...tools for Critical appraisal:

• The best source of information is CASP: Critical Appraisal Skills Programme which offers a range of tools to help you critically appraise different types of article.
• CLIST trainers’ toolkit pages: Critical appraisal resources . This page (from LondonLinks) provides links to Critical Appraisal resource pages maintained by a selection of UK healthcare libraries.

---