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The process of searching, synthesizing, and evaluating the reports of original research can be daunting and time intensive. There are several databases that offer synthesized and evaluated evidence in the form of systematic reviews, meta-analyses, guidelines, and critically appraised topics. This literature is referred to as the secondary literature.
Through pre-appraised summaries, experts provide a critical review of an original research article or a group of research articles on the same topic for the purpose of producing a synopsis of the evidence.
There are other resources meant specifically to assist the clinician and the student in making decisions at the point-of-care. Often these resources are in the form of handbooks or guides and are sometimes referred to as tertiary literature. Many of these point-of-care tools are now available in mobile-friendly formats.
When searching for pre-appraised literature and summaries, you can either go directly to a specific source or you can use a search engine designed to find this type of information.
The content of this website, consisting of https://researchguides.uic.edu/ebm and it's sub-pages, is being shared as an Open Educational Resource (OER) with a Creative Commons License. For a definition of OER, licensing information, and our preferred attribution statement, please see our OER Information page.