Thursday, May 30, 2013

Searching for the right evidence: how to answer your clinical questions using the 6S hierarchy

Asking and answering clinical questions during daily practice can be challenging and time consuming. Knowing the resources available to answer a specific clinical question can lead to a more efficient and effective search strategy and thus, to a more applicable answer based on the levels of evidence available. This primer reviews how to search for the right evidence using a specified hierarchy and provides examples of pre-appraised resources with corresponding websites to help with your search.

Introduction

The readers of our journal most likely have busy clinical, administrative and/or teaching roles. As such, time is of the essence when thinking about answering clinical questions that arise in patient care. DiCenso and colleagues recently published a hierarchy of pre-appraised evidence called the 6S model.1 This model denotes in a pyramidal fashion the six levels of evidence available in clinical decision making. It starts with the largest resource available...






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