Identify the best study design based on nature of question
Depending on the nature of your question (Step 1) you can use the hierarchy of evidence to select a relevant primary study design to look for the answer. The image below aims to capture types of study designs for each question type.
Image from: Brignardello-Petersen, R., Carrasco-Labra, A., Glick, M., Guyatt, G. H., & Azarpazhooh, A. (2014). A practical approach to evidence-based dentistry: understanding and applying the principles of EBD. Journal of the American Dental Association, 145(11), 1105-1107. doi: 10.14219/jada.2014.102
Resources for Background Questions
Textbooks – search the library catalogue
- Dental Management of the Medically Compromised Patient
- Medical Emergencies in the Dental Office
- Netter's Head and Neck Anatomy for Dentistry
- Drug Information Handbook for Dentistry
- Mosby's Dental Drug Reference
- ADA Dental Drug Handbook
Drug Databases e.g.
Internet
Preappraised Resources for Foreground Questions
Summaries and Clinical Practice Guidelines
Summaries and Clinical Practice Guidelines can also be great for background questions. They often grade strength of recommendations and/or certainty of evidence. They also contain links to other useful, preappraised resources such as systematic reviews or clinical trials.
- ADA Clinical Practice Guidelines
- UpToDate
- DynaMed
- JCDA Oasis
- ECRI Guidelines Trust
- Lexidrug
- BMJ Best Practice
Other Preappraised Resources
These include systematic reviews and synopses. They are rigorously peer-reviewed and serve as a reliable evidence source. Some journals specialize in publishing evidence-based synopses, which summarize evidence from high-quality studies.
Primary Studies
Databases of original research (may also contain Systematic Reviews and other study designs).
- PubMed
- May use filters!
- PubMed Clinical Queries
- Embase
- Interdisciplinary databases like Scopus & Web of Science
- Other databases and indexes for Dentistry (available at UofT)
Comprehensive Resources
Also called meta-searchers or search aggregators, these tools are useful because they search across multiple resources and retrieve information at all levels of the evidence hierarchy. Most also allow you to filter or rank search results by evidence type.