Evidence-based medicine databases: An overview

ABSTRACT

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) helps to bridge the gap between current healthcare practice and recent researchfindings in health care. Today’s era of scientific information explosion makes hard for healthcare providers to remainup to date on the best clinical practices. In reality, a physician has to read 17 scientific literature works per day to remainup to date. This is a difficult challenge, but EBM databases provide quick access to research findings. This review aimsto provide an overview of EBM databases. These databases provide information about guidelines, disease, treatment,diagnosis, clinical relevance, systematic reviews, clinical trials, observational studies, preappraised information,summary, abstract, full text, similar studies, short reports, clinical queries, images, e-textbooks, patient counselinginformation, and continuous medical education in a minimum period of time. The identification and utilization ofrecent research findings is a critical step to enhance patient care and clinical practice. This review provides an insightinto various EBM databases, type of evidence, access details, and link to each database. Establishing educationalrequirements and awareness in the practice of EBM among healthcare professionals is a great step for promoting thepractice of EBM.