Guidelines
Finding clinical practice guidelines can be tricky. Start with these resources, and reach out to a librarian if you get stuck.
Drug Information
- Lexidrug This link opens in a new window
Provides point-of-care drug information, including dosing, administration, interactions, toxicology, warnings and precautions, pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenomics, and more. Generic or product name searches link to additional information, including AHFS Essentials, AHFS DI, Martindale, Facts and Comparisons A to Z Drugs, as well as information for pediatric and geriatric populations. Also provides links to the UVA Health System Formulary, the Formulary Monograph Service, and Trissel's IV Compatibility.
Nurse Residency Program
Searching the Literature
Choose a Database
Start here for a literature search!
Pick a bibliographic database that has topical coverage for your chosen PICO question.
Choose keywords that match the elements of your PICO question. Think about the population, the intervention, and the desired outcome!
Then use Boolean operators to combine these terms together.
- PubMed This link opens in a new windowProvides access to over 30 million citations for the biomedical literature from MEDLINE, online books, selected publishers, and the PubMed Central repository.
- CINAHL This link opens in a new window
Provides citations and selected full text for the top nursing and allied health literature available and covers a wide range of topics including nursing, biomedicine, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines.
- PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Database covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, and linguistics. Updated monthly.
- Cochrane Library This link opens in a new windowA collection of databases that contain high-quality, independent evidence to support healthcare decision making. Includes full-text access to the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, as well as the full-records from DARE, Health Technology Assessment Database (HTA), and NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED).
- Embase
Embase is a biomedical database that focuses on drugs and pharmacology, medical devices, clinical medicine, and basic science relevant to clinical medicine. It provides access to bibliographic citations to more than 8,500 biomedical journal articles from over 95 countries. It also contains over 2.4 million conference abstracts indexed from more than 7,000 conferences dating from 2009 to the present, and full-text indexing of drug, disease, and medical device data. It has especially strong coverage on drug trials. Over 1.5 million records are added yearly, with an average of over 6,000 each day.
Boolean Operators
Be careful when combining keywords or other search terms together. Use the appropriate Boolean operator.
AND does not make the search bigger!!!
Finding Background Information
Use these point-of-care tools (synthesized evidence) to gain background information about your topic. These sources always share their references, so it can be a good place to start a search too.
They all have mobile apps, if you'd prefer to use them on your phone!
- UpToDate This link opens in a new windowA physician authored clinical decision support resource with synthesized evidence ideal for point-of-care decisions. Compiles the most recent information to support its evidence-based recommendations.
- Lexidrug This link opens in a new window
Provides point-of-care drug information, including dosing, administration, interactions, toxicology, warnings and precautions, pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenomics, and more. Generic or product name searches link to additional information, including AHFS Essentials, AHFS DI, Martindale, Facts and Comparisons A to Z Drugs, as well as information for pediatric and geriatric populations. Also provides links to the UVA Health System Formulary, the Formulary Monograph Service, and Trissel's IV Compatibility.
- VisualDx
VisualDx is clinical decision support tool intended to be used by medical practitioners, including primary care practitioners, to assist them in differential diagnosis.