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What is evidence-based practice?
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) provides this description:
Evidence-based practice is the integration of:
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clinical expertise/expert opinion;
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external scientific evidence; and
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client/patient/caregiver perspectives.
Image courtesy of ASHA
Read more about evidence-based practice and the EBP Process from ASHA.
Where can you find evidence-based practice in the peer-reviewed literature? Click through the tabs below to identify places to begin your research.
Have questions? Reach out to your CDS librarian. Her contact information is in the left-hand column of this page.
To quickly jump into the literature, try starting with:
Search within the PubMed database and use the provided filters to sift through the literature.
On the results page, filter through Clinical Study articles:
- by category: therapy, etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, or clinical prediction guides
and
- by scope: broad or narrow
Also on the results page, find Systematic Reviews displayed in the central column. More options to filter your results are available when you click to See all results.
The ASHA webpage for evidence-based practice provides links to a number of useful web resources in the section EBP Tools and Resources. Among these helpful links are:
Provide summaries and appraisals of published research by clinical topic. (Learn about ASHA's process for creating these Evidence Maps.)
List systematic reviews conducted by ASHA's National Center for Evidence-based Practice in Communication Disorders in partnership with ASHA members or committees.
To familiarize yourself with EBP terminology, check out the ASHA EBP Glossary.
For key information on particular clinical topics and professional issues in audiology and speech-language pathology, visit ASHA's Practice Portal.
Find evidence-based practice articles in the databases below. Articles may follow one of many different types of study design, such as randomized control trial, cohort study, meta-analysis, or systematic review.
View the table on this EBP Toolkit from Oregon Health & Science University for additional types of research designs and the affiliated clinical questions they address (e.g., etiology, diagnosis, therapy, prognosis, etc.).
Cross-search selected EBSCO article databases for topics in Communication Disorders & Sciences
Biomedical literature, including articles within communication disorders subject areas.
Education database, including articles on speech and communication disorders in children.
Search across many disciplines and sources. Track, analyze, and visualize scholarly research.
Systematic reviews | Evidence-based health care
- AHRQ's National Guideline Clearinghouse (Open Access)
Summaries of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines disseminated by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Includes Otolaryngology, Speech-Language Pathology and more.
Note: Funding to support the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ's) NGC contract ended on July 16, 2018. A study launched in August 2018 by AHRQ will help identify new models for disseminating and accessing evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. The 12-month project is intended to build on AHRQ’s previous support for the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC). Read more.
