Physical Therapist Assistant Resources

Conducting research on evidence-based practices always begins by considering a problem or patient condition, evaluating the types of treatments or interventions currently available, comparing those interventions, and studying outcomes. Use the acronym PICO to help remember the steps for conducting a search for evidence-based practices:

   P = Patient or Problem

   I = Intervention

   C = Comparison Intervention (if you want to compare different              types of interventions)

   O = Outcomes

The Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEBM) includes additional information about formulating good research questions related to implementing an evidence based practice.

A crucial component of evidence-based practice is finding information or evidence that supports a clinical practice. We suggest using CINAHL, a comprehensive database with scholarly, authoritative journal articles, to help find evidence-based practices.

• Use the database CINAHL to find scholarly articles
• In CINAHL you can limit your search to just evidence based practice. Scroll down the screen (under limits) and click on the box next to "Evidence Based Practice"
• You can also include the term "evidence based practice" in your search. Using the term "evidence based" (without practice) will yield the most results.
• Remember, a crucial part of the process is to compare the results of evidence and outcomes from multiple studies. Make sure to find multiple sources for your project!

"Evidence-based medicine…is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence-based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research." (Sackett, 1997)

Evidence-based practice has become increasingly important in the fields of medicine.  An evidence-based practice is a treatment methodology or procedure that has been tested, studied, and proven effective--not just accepted blindly as a standard practice.This section of the Libguide will help you to understand the steps of implementing evidence-based practice and for finding pertinent articles and research.

Watch this 15 minute Ted Talk to get a very comprehensive view of the dangers of the failure to carefully evaluate medical research.