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Searching for Guidelines: Home

Searching for Guidelines

Searching for EBP Guidelines

This page contains resources helpful in searching for Evidenced Based Practice Guidelines.  

  • In particular, it is possible to search for guidelines in major health databases including PubMed and CINAHL.  To find guidelines in these two databases, first perform a subject search and then use an appropriate limiter to restrict search results to guidelines.  For instance, CINAHL has a limiter for “practice guideline” in the “Publication Type” box on the “Search Options” page, while PubMed has limiters both for “guideline” and “practice guideline” under the Article Type section on the left-hand sidebar of the search results page.
  • TRIP Database, which stands for Translating Research into Practice, is another excellent resource for finding guidelines.  First, perform your subject search and then limit your results by looking for a guideline limiter on the right-hand side of the search results page.
  • Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Evidence-Based Practice Database - in the search box, enter the keyword guideline or truncate using * or $ (i.e., guideline* or guideline$) to obtain all results with the "guideline" word root, including guideline or guidelines.

These databases listed above are linked to the Databases & Resources link under the Library Resources tab on the upper left side of the homepage of the Biomedical Library:

In addition, the 10th edition of Polit and Beck’s classic text Nursing Research: Generating and Assessing Evidence for Nursing Practice lists useful websites to find guidelines.  

While the following sources are not linked to our homepage, most are free and may be accessed via the URL provided.  (For any access issues, try to find the guideline in PubMed or contact the Biomedical Library or try to request the guideline via the Biomedical Library's Interlibrary Loan department.

Also, see professional societies and organizations, including the following non-exclusive list.

  • AWHONN (Association of Women’s  Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses)
  • Toxnet ("Toxicology Data Network," produced by the National Library of Medicine.  Enter the word  “guidelines” in the main search box and then click “more results” to get a complete listing of guidelines at this website.)
  • Equator Network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research)​
    • This site does not include guidelines, but it does provide reporting guidelines for clinical practice guidelines, among other study types.
  • Guidelines International Network (G-I-N) is another excellent place to search for guidelines; however, search results will only contain descriptive information such as the title, date, and sponsoring organization.  The full-text of the guideline is restricted to paying members and organizations, but it might be useful to search G-I-N for guidelines and then search other databases like PubMed for possible full-text access. 

(NB: The National Guideline Clearinghouse is no longer available, since funding by the federal government ended on July 16, 2018.)

 

USA Biomedical Library

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Director, Biomedical Library

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Gail Kouame
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