- You will find a variety of health and medical journal articles based on the type of research that was conducted e.g. Random Controlled Trials (RCT) about testing medical implants or drugs, cohort studies, systematic reviews, meta-analysis, etc.
- The best type of evidence based medical (EBM) journal articles are those that have been systematically reviewed and meta analyzed (statistical approach). These research methods and results have been analyzed again after their original publication.
- When searching Pubmed database you can limit your search results to systematically review
- When searching in Google Scholar combine "systematic reviews" and "your research topic in quotes"
When selecting keywords , think about the following:
- PATIENT/PROBLEM - What are the characteristics of the patient or population or problem that you are researching?
- INTERVENTION - What is being done to or for this patient or population or problem?
- COMPARISON - What alternatives can be considered?
- OUTCOME - What are you trying to measure ?
- what type of information are you looking for:?
- therapy (treatment),
- Diagnosis,
- Etiology (identify causes for disease) ,
- Prognosis (estimate patient's clinical course),
- Prevention
"US veterans" "ultrasound screening"
P: "US veterans"
i: "ultrasound screening"
narrowed down to "systematic reviews"
P: "Female veterans"
I " echocardiography"
"female veterans" echocardiography RCT or randomized clinical trial
