Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Clinicians have limited time to search for literature to answer questions arising in day-to-day practice. Pre-appraised evidence summaries are more readily available via sources such as NHS Evidence and the TRIP Database. However, are these easy for clinicians to use and will they help clinicians to be able to find answers to their questions quickly?
Objectives: The aim of this project was to assess the ability of simple searches to answer questions that arise in clinical practice and highlight some of the barriers that might be encountered.
Methods: We selected clinical questions from Critically Appraised Topics (CATs) in Musculoskeletal Care produced by allied health professionals and researchers using traditional structured searches. Questions included three intervention effectiveness questions, one question on access to musculoskeletal primary care and a question on the effectiveness of outpatient appointment duration. Simple searches were carried out for each of these topics on Clinical Knowledge Summaries, NHS Evidence, PubMed Clinical Queries and the TRIP Database and compared to the results of the original CATs. Remember to spell out what these acronyms mean.
Results: Only two of the intervention questions were answered by the simple search; one of these by a pre-appraised resource, Best Bets. No new literature was found that had not been found in the full CAT search. However, the full CAT search did retrieve literature not found in the simple search but this was based on lower quality evidence. Some resources searched produced a large volume of hits and literature had to be appraised and interpreted, which took additional time and skills.
Conclusions: Evidence to answer clinicians' questions about the effectiveness of interventions can sometimes be found from simple literature searches. However, this is not always a quick process and some judgement and appraisal skills are still required to select the most appropriate literature. Many questions remain unanswered about both simple and traditional searching methods.
Objectives: The aim of this project was to assess the ability of simple searches to answer questions that arise in clinical practice and highlight some of the barriers that might be encountered.
Methods: We selected clinical questions from Critically Appraised Topics (CATs) in Musculoskeletal Care produced by allied health professionals and researchers using traditional structured searches. Questions included three intervention effectiveness questions, one question on access to musculoskeletal primary care and a question on the effectiveness of outpatient appointment duration. Simple searches were carried out for each of these topics on Clinical Knowledge Summaries, NHS Evidence, PubMed Clinical Queries and the TRIP Database and compared to the results of the original CATs. Remember to spell out what these acronyms mean.
Results: Only two of the intervention questions were answered by the simple search; one of these by a pre-appraised resource, Best Bets. No new literature was found that had not been found in the full CAT search. However, the full CAT search did retrieve literature not found in the simple search but this was based on lower quality evidence. Some resources searched produced a large volume of hits and literature had to be appraised and interpreted, which took additional time and skills.
Conclusions: Evidence to answer clinicians' questions about the effectiveness of interventions can sometimes be found from simple literature searches. However, this is not always a quick process and some judgement and appraisal skills are still required to select the most appropriate literature. Many questions remain unanswered about both simple and traditional searching methods.