Nursing: Home

1. Open Clinical Skills 
2. Click on Skills
3. Click browse topics.
4. Note: Clinical Skills topics are used in conjunction with local Northern Health Policies and Practice Standards. Related skills will populate automatically when searched in the Policy Database on OurNH. 

Search strategies and searching: 

Evidence based nursing involves within it the process of "accessing and acquiring" evidence - and competencies for this include (1):

• Understanding the acronym of PICO
• Converting your clinical scenario to a searchable question
• Making distinctions between pre-appraised (synthesized) and un-appraised database resources and recognizing common databases to use (see the database list above for common databases)
• Basic searching skills
• Ability to construct a search strategy plan for a relevant database. 

(1) Leung, K., Trevena, L., & Waters, D. (2016). Development of a competency framework for evidence-based practice in nursing. Nurse Education Today, 39, 189–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2016.01.026

For information on PICO and search planning, try these guides: 

• University of Northern British Columbia Library's Evidence Based Nursing Guide - prepared by Dr. Trina Fyfe. 
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research's Introduction to Evidence-Informed Practice (Self Guided Learning Module) 

For tips on getting started in CINAHL and Medline with a search, check out these short videos: 

Keyword searching in OVID is helpful for using both the Cochrane Databases of Systematic Reviews and Medline. 

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