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finding NURSING INFORMATION: evaluating search results
types of nursing information start with a
good topic decide what kind of information you
need search for journal
articles search for books
search
for statistics evaluating search results
getting full-text journal title abbreviations citing
sources getting citations automatically via
e-mail
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain
Evaluating
journal articles
Not everything printed in a journal is of equal value. Some articles print only opinion (editorials and letters to the editor) while others can print the results of scientific studies. There is even a huge difference between scientific studies. The chart below gives some basic things to look for when reading a nursing research article:
Evaluating Quality of the Research
- What was studied (content of the study)
- What kind of study was it (study design)
- Were the subjects randomly chosen/assigned?
- Did person giving intervention know whether the subjects were in the experimental or control groups (blinding)?
- How many subjects were there at the start of the study? What were their characteristics? What were the inclusion/exclusion criteria?
- How many subjects dropped out before the completion of the study?
- How long did the study last (time frame)? How long was the intervention administered?
- What were the conclusions of study? For more information, the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine provides online worksheets for evaluating articles relating to diagnosis, prognosis, harm, aetiology, therapy, and systematic reviews of therapy.
Also, the library has a number of terrific books on:
evaluating medical research...check the following call number
Q180.55.E9 G57 2001
understanding nursing research...check the following call number
RT81.5 .B863 2007
appraisal and utilization of nursing research...check the
following call number RT81.5 .N873 1986
Evaluating
websites
More and more people are relying on the web for medical information. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) has a short checklist of criteria to use when evaluating a medical website. 10 Things To Know About Evaluating Medical Resources on the Web.
for help finding nursing information, contact: Valori.Banfi@uconn.edu
to comment on this tutorial, contact: Jill.Livingston@uconn.edu