Skip to main content

Information skills to support literature searching

As healthcare workers you make decisions based on evidence. Whether you are presenting arguments in an assignment, discussing changing practice, researching a new intervention or deciding on the best patient care, you need the best evidence to help you.

To find the best evidence you need to use your information skills, so that you can gather the best information as efficiently and effectively as possible. Developing a literature search plan will remind you of the steps to follow and help you to be systematic in your searching.

We can help you to develop your skills and set you on the right path to completing your literature search, to find the information you need.

nurse reading an article he has found

Try these tutorials to get started with literature searching:

1. Complete our tutorial Introduction to Literature Searching. Follow these steps to start your literature search plan. Print out your completed plan at the end.

2. Save a template Search Plan. Use this plan to prompt you to think about your search terms when you need to search for information.

3. Download and update this Literature Searching Overview and Action Plan to remind you of the steps you need to consider when you start to search for information.

4. Complete our tutorial Literature Searching Flashcards whenever you want a quick refresh of the literature searching steps to follow to create your plan.

5. Listen to the Study Matters podcast. Get hints and tips on good literature searching from a member of the librarian team.

More eTutorials

Find all our online tutorials on the Information Skills web page on the Health Library website.

More help

Contact the Health Library if you need any help finding the information you need. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hot Topics! Get the latest evidence for health topics in the news

 Seen a health topic in the news? Want to be ready for your patient's questions? Need to know the latest evidence? Check out our Hot Topic! blog posts. We post the latest evidence from key, high quality resources such as BMJ Best Practice, Clinical Key Overviews, Oxford handbooks and more, on health topics in the news. Recent topics include: Heat stroke Diabetes - type 1 Asthma Ebola Hantavirus Endometriosis To view all the latest topics go to our Information Skills for Health blog .

Access NHS online resources from one place

 A wealth of online, health-care specific resources are available to NHS staff. You can easily and quickly access these resources from the Health Library web pages: NHS resources for UHNM staff NHS resources for North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare staff NHS resources for staff working for the ICB and GP practices in Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Why use our web pages? You'll get a list of all the resources available to you Where possible we link you straight to the NHS OpenAthens login page Institution-specific links are available if necessary You can link to help pages if you need more support Need more help? Contact the Health Library for more help accessing resources and to get the information you need.