Clinical Practice Guidelines are recommendations on how to accurately diagnose and treat a medical condition. They are mainly written for doctors, but also for nurses and other health care professionals. Clinical practice guidelines summarize the current medical understanding, weighing the benefits and disadvantages of diagnostic procedures and treatments, and give specific recommendations based on this information. They should also provide details regarding the scientific evidence supporting those recommendations. Clinical practice guidelines should be updated regularly. Make sure you are using the most current guideline.
Some databases like CINAHL Ultimate include a limiter for "Practice Guidelines," located under Publication Type.
Systematic Reviews can be found in almost all health science databases. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews contains full text articles, as well as protocols focusing on the effects of healthcare. Systematic reviews are at the top of the Evidence Pyramid, meaning they have a high level of evidence, but also there aren't as many of them. Be aware that you may need to broaden your topic in order to find relevant systematic reviews.
Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) includes abstracts of published systematic reviews on the effects of health care from around the world, which have been critically analyzed according to a high standard of criteria. This database provides access to quality reviews in subjects for which a Cochrane review may not yet exist.
You can also search for Systematic Reviews by using the "Advanced Search" feature in our EBSCO databases. Under "Publication Type", scroll down and select "Systematic Review".
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