Review

• Primary literature is based upon primary data analysis in which authors of the articles collect, as well as analyze, the data. Most research is "primary".
• Secondary literature offers a filter for capturing the best of primary studies and often synthesizes the results for consumers like social work practitioners.
• Secondary Literature includes narrative literature reviews, secondary data analysis, meta-analysis and systematic reviews
• There is a hierarchy of research methods. The "gold standard" of medicine are the randomized, placebo controlled, double-blind trials.
  
  
• Social work traditionally relies on case studies, qualitative analysis, historical inquiries, narrative literature reviews, surveys, and practice guidelines
• In medicine evidence-based practice requires a thorough search of the literature relating to the questions and a critical appraisal of the evidence.
• Evidence from the medical literature should support clinical decisions (represented by the three overlapping circles below:)
  
• Evidence-based medicine approaches are being applied to other fields, including social work.
• Evidence-based approaches within social work require an understanding of the complexities of organizational structures, interactions, and myriad other dynamics that shape and influence decision making at the local, state, regional, and national levels within which social work operates and within which policies and programs are established.
• The (NASW Code of Ethics) states that "Social workers should critically examine and keep current with emerging knowledge relevant to social work and fully use evaluation and research evidence in their professional practice" (5.02(c)).
• Subject headings that can act as a filter to find evidence-based practice articles are Best evidence, Critical appraisal, Effective Programs, Evidence based mental health, Science based and Systematic review.
• For review articles, Ovid MedLine also has two check boxes that will limit your search just to reviews:

  EBM Reviews	Review Articles

• In addition, UM-MEDSEARCH offers three separate databases for evidence-based reviews that are more comprehensive for this genre than MedLine including

  EBM Reviews - Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

 

 

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