This brand new, fully-updated user-friendly toolkit helps with searching for medical evidence, explaining how to learn simple search skills, directing the reader to the right resources to find the best evidence to support their decision-making an essential skill for everyone involved in health care research and development. .

Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Evidence-based medicine 1 Why search? 2 How do you keep up to date 4 Further reading 5 Chapter 2 Where to start 6 The hierarchy of evidence 6 The hierarchy of searching 7 1. How much time do I have? 8 2. What type of publication am I looking for? 10 3. Is my query about a specific topic? 13 Chapter 3 Clinical information: sources 15 Medical libraries 15 The Internet 15 Chapter 4 Searching the Internet 26 Search engines and directories 26 Evaluating material found on the World Wide Web 29 Saving useful websites 35 Chapter 5 Formulating searchable questions 37 Types of question 37 Breaking down the clinical scenario 38 Identifying keywords 39 Further reading 39 Chapter 6 Building a search strategy 41 Identifying synonyms 41 Synonym sources 42 Truncation and wildcards 42 Combining terms (using Boolean operators) 46 Construction of the final search strategy 47 Chapter 7 Free text and thesaurus searching 50 Free text searching 50 Thesaurus searching 51 Chapter 8 Searching healthcare databases 55 Finding the evidence: key steps 55 Medline 57 PubMed 57 Ovid Medline 64 CINAHL 68 Cochrane Library 73 Further reading 80 Chapter 9 Refining search results 81 Limits 81 Methodological filters 85 Clinical Queries 86 Sensitivity versus specificity 87 Systematic reviews 89 Further reading 90 Chapter 10 Saving citations 93 Logbooks 93 Reference management software 94 Chapter 11 Citation pearl searching 98 Related items 98 Author search 99 Keywords 99 Journals 100 Snowballing 100 Alerts 101 RSS feeds 101 Chapter 12 Quality improvement and value: sources 102 Examples of quality improvement and value questions 102 Current awareness 102 Searching for evidence on quality improvement and value 103 Other useful sources of information 105 Networks 113 Further reading 114 Chapter 13 Patient information: sources 115 Shared decision-making 115 Poor quality health information 116 Good quality health information 116 Appraising online consumer health information 117 Trusted information sources 118 Rarer conditions 120 Third-party assistance 121 Patient decision aids 121 Writing patient information 122 Keeping up to date with patient information 122 Further reading 123 Chapter 14 Critical appraisal 124 Definition 124 Critical appraisal checklists 124 Further reading 125 Chapter 15 Glossary of terms 126 Appendix 1 Ten tips for effective searching 135 Appendix 2 Teaching resources 138 Record your favourite resources 142 Index 143

Searching Skills Toolkit is an expert guide to help you find the clinical evidence you need more easily and effectively.Clearly presented with useful tips and advice, flow charts, diagrams and real-life clinical scenarios, it shows the best methods for finding quality evidence. From deciding where to start, to building a search strategy, refining results and critical appraisal, it is a step-by-step guide to the process of finding healthcare evidence, and is designed for use by all health and social care professionals.This second edition has been expanded with new chapters on searching for sources to support evidence-based management decision making and how to better enable your patients to make informed choices. It has also been fully updated to include new web sources, open source reference management software, and new training resources and exercises.Searching Skills Toolkit is an ideal reference for doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, managers and decision makers, researchers and students.