Evidence Based Medicine Series

Evidence based medicine series

Evidence summaries

When looking for answers to questions such as “what are the current recommendations for the management of heart failure” or “how effective are NSAIDS for osteoarthritis of the knee”, a targeted resource which provides a summary of the available evidence is the most useful approach. It would be time consuming, and usually unnecessary, to search for the original research publications yourself and summarise the evidence from scratch. With respect to questions about latest drug treatments and clinical effectiveness, the work has usually been done. However if the question concerns an individual patient, the reader still has to interpret and apply the evidence from population based research.

The following is a brief list of evidence summaries which are available as free resources on the internet. Popular and highly recommended resources available on subscription include UpToDate and Dynamed.

Guidelines

National and international guidelines are available and if these are up to date they can assist in answering many questions. New Zealand guidelines are available from and reputable international sources include NICE- and SIGN –
Guidelines are often very detailed and the summary may be all that is initially required.

Tripdatabase

This database provides access to evidence-based synopses of individual studies that have been critically appraised and systematic reviews which are methodological syntheses of primary research studies. “TRIP” will also pick up guidelines from international sources, eTextbooks and also automatically searches Medline to check for any latest research. As with any searchable database, it is important to explore its coverage, options and search logic to get the best and most efficient results. Some of the links from TRIP may lead to a resource that requires a subscription but this is necessary to ensure comprehensive coverage. However, most questions can be answered using free resources.

Clinical knowledge summaries (CKS – formerly Prodigy)

This database is funded by the NHS in the UK. Users outside the UK can access the database free of charge following simple registration. CKS is organised in to therapeutic categories and is well referenced with regular updates (available by email). The summaries are very readable and user friendly and often include plain language text for patients.

Cochrane database

This database offers free access to the abstracts and, where available, the plain language summaries of all Cochrane systematic reviews. Appropriate skills and knowledge are required in the interpretation of the information, but referral to Cochrane may be useful when there evidence is limited to one or two systematic reviews and a summary cannot be found in other sources. It can also be used to check if other sources (e.g. guidelines) have included the most up-to-date systematic reviews.

Other resources to explore include national library of health (UK) -
and SumSearch -