Updated September 2022
Our Librarians are experts at performing evidence searches, and have many years of searching experience within the NHS. Let us take the heavy lifting out of finding the evidence.
We can search the healthcare databases and other resources to find you relevant, high quality information for patient care, complex conditions, audits, quality improvement and research projects. We find evidence-based information to support you.
To use the evidence search service you must be a registered member of ESNEFT Libraries.
Please note, this service is not available for students on placement.
To request an evidence search please either email us or complete the online request form below.
It may be helpful to look at the information in the PICO tab, to help formulate your search question.
Using PICO to create answerable clinical questions
When asking clinical questions, a framework such as PICO can help formulate an answerable question and make searching for an answer easier.
PICO stands for:
Patient Problem, (or Population)
This would be the patient’s condition or disease, and could also include the population group (e.g. pregnant women, people over 75 years old)
Intervention (or exposure)
This could be the treatment, exposure or test that you want to find out about in relation to the clinical problem and could be an intervention such as a surgical procedure, drug treatment, or change in diet, or it could be an exposure to an environmental hazard, a physical feature (such as being overweight), or it could be a diagnostic test.
Comparison or Control
This might be an alternative or control strategy, exposure or test for comparison with the one you are interested in. A Comparison is not always present in a PICO framework.
Outcome
This would be what you (or the patient) wants to happen (or stop happening)
Example:
‘In infants born prematurely, compared to those born at full term, what is the subsequent lifetime prevalence of sensory deafness?'
P Population/patient = infants
I Intervention/indicator = premature
C Comparator/control = full-term
O Outcome = sensorial deafness
*Word Cloud on feedback from our Evidence Search Service (results from 21_22 surveys)
Made via https://www.wordclouds.com/
