About Finding Articles and Evidence
All of the resources listed on this page are either freely available or are available through subscriptions (marked with lock icon). If you are off-campus, you may be prompted to sign in with hawk id and password.If you experience any difficulty with access or would like to recommend a resource to add, please contact the guide owner.
The databases listed on this page are excellent places to start a literature search. Please schedule a consultation iif you need help finding, organizing, or formatting references.
For most of the databases listed, look for the UI Link button in your results, and select it to view full text options.
Jennifer DeBerg
319 335 8554
Clinical Education Librarian
Liaison to: Nursing, Communication Sciences, Music Therapy, Rehabilitation Therapies
ASHA EBP Resources
Guide to Searching
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PICO WorksheetA tool to help with structuring question into PICO format and with generating search terms
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Searching Guide for Health SciencesContains suggestions on which resources to consult by question type, along with general principles to keep in mind when searching health sciences resources.
Point of Care Tools for Finding Evidence
Core Databases
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ASHA Compendium of Guidelines and Systematic ReviewsContains list of guidelines and systematic reviews from 2001 to present that have implications for clinical practice (speech or audiology). Can be browsed by keyword for topic or by resource type. A summary and brief appraisal of the relevant segment of each guideline or systematic review is provided. This work has been conducted by ASHA's National Center for Evidence-Based Practice in Communication Disorders (N-CEP).
This resource is not configured to work with Infolink; you may need to check search tools such as Smart Search or article locator to find full text of referenced articles.
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CINAHLCumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature: Includes over 3000 journals for nursing and 17 allied health disciplines. Primary coverage is peer-reviewed journals with studies and review articles; also includes dissertations, drug reports, conference proceedings. Includes nearly all SLP journals, not always comprehensive for dates of coverage. Includes most, but not all, audiology journals.
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PubMedHuge database of biomedical citations; includes over 5000 peer-reviewed journals in all aspects of medicine and health sciences. Includes MEDLINE, which are the citations indexed with the Medical Subject Headings or MeSH. Includes many SLP and audiology journals.
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PsycINFOIncludes clinical psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics. Includes cognitive science journals not captured in other health sciences databases.
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SpeechBiteA freely available database for locating evidence by grade for speech and language interventions (produced by University of Sydney and Speech Pathology Australia).This resource is not configured to work with Infolink; you may need to check search tools such as Smart Search or article locator to find full text of referenced articles.
Defining Evidence Based Clinical Practice
Evidence-Based Clinical Practice (EBCP): Evidence-based practice is the judicious use of the best research evidence (found in health sciences literature), clinical expertise (what the health care provider knows) and patient values (what the patient wants and believes) to create a plan of action regarding patient care. Evidence-based practice is an umbrella term that covers evidence-based medicine, evidence-based dentistry, evidence-based public health, evidence-based nursing and etc.
Evidence Pyramid
These are some of the publication types that are associated with higher levels of evidence. You may want to start at the top of the pyramid and work your way down.
Publication Types by Question Type: Different study types are suited to different questions. For example:
Most Clinical Questions: Meta-analyses, systematic reviews
Therapy: Randomized Controlled Trial
Diagnosis: Prospective, blind controlled trial compared to gold standard
Prognosis: Cohort study, case control, case series/case report
Etiology/Harm: Cohort study, case control, case series