Searching for Guidelines: Home

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.

• Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ).  This website contains links to guidelines from the Clinical Practice Guidelines Archive, the Guide to Clinical Preventive Services (2012-2014), and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).

• American College of Physicians Clinical Guidelines and Recommendations 

• Australian Government National Health and Medical Research Council Guidelines and Publications 

• Canadian Medical Association (CMA) Clinical Practice Guidelines 

• ECRI  Guidelines Trust - a publicly available web-based repository of  evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, developed by nationally- and internationally-recognized medical organizations and medical specialty societies.   A free registration is required.

• GuidelineCentral - site contains over 2500 free guideline summaries.  A free registration is required.

• Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI)

• National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE)
• Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO)

• Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN)

• Toward Optimized Practice Clinical Practice Guidelines (TOP)

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

• AIDSOURCE Medical Practice Guidelines (produced by the National Library of Medicine)

• American Association for the Surgery of Trauma Guidelines (AAST) 

• American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) - refers to guidelines as “Clinical Policies” 

• American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry - refers to guidelines as “Practice Parameters"

• American Academy of Neurology Guidelines

• American Academy of Pediatrics - enter “practice guideline” in the search box at top of homepage

• American Association for Respiratory Care - Clinical Practice Guidelines

• American College of Cardiology - restrict search to "guidelines" in drop-down search box at top of homepage

• American College of Chest Physicians Guidelines & Resources

• American Diabetes Association Clinical Practice Recommendations 

• American Psychiatric Association (APA) Guidelines

• American Society of Health-System Pharmacists  (ASHP) Policy Positions and Guidelines

• AWHONN (Association of Women’s  Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses)

• EAST Practice Management Guidelines (Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma)

• Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Practice Guidelines 

• National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines

• National Heart Lung and Blood Institute – Systematic Evidence Reviews and Clinical Practice Guidelines

• 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.)