This page offers some of the key links to evidence-based practice resources available
on the Internet, some of which are directly relevant to occupational therapy. It
is by no means a comprehensive listing. Click on one of the selections below for
links.
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EVIDENCE BASED OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY LINKS
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OT-CATS
http://www.otcats.com This site contains CATs (critically appraised topics)
and CAPs (critically appraised papers) focussing on occupational therapy interventions.
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University of Queensland Evidence Based Occupational Therapy Group (Australia)
http://www.shrs.uq.edu.au/ot/research/evidence_based_practice.html
The University of Queensland Evidence Based Occupational Therapy Group was formed
by a group of occupational therapists with the principle goal of promoting and facilitating
evidence based occupational therapy practice through teaching, research, continuing
education and developing resources such as OTseeker. It includes information on
teaching, tips for locating research evidence and other links.
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Occupational Therapy Evidence Based Practice Research Group (Canada)
http://www-fhs.mcmaster.ca/rehab/ebp
The McMaster University Occupational Therapy Evidence-Based Practice Research
Group aims to focus on research that critically reviews evidence regarding the effectiveness
of occupational therapy interventions. They have developed tools to use in the evaluation
of occupational therapy programmes and guidelines for critical appraisal. This site
gives online access to the group's critical appraisal forms and guidelines (quantitative
and qualitative) as well as to 2 systematic reviews.
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Joint Position Statement on Evidence Based Occupational Therapy (Canada)
http://www.caot.ca/default.asp?pageid=156
This is a joint position statement from Canada that reviews the background,
information, responsibilities and challenges required for evidence-based occupational
therapy. It was written in 1999 by the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists
(CAOT), the Association of Canadian Occupational Therapy University Programs (ACOTUP),
the Association of Canadian Occupational Therapy Regulatory Organizations (ACOTRO),
and the Presidents' Advisory Committee (PAC)
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American Occupational Therapy Foundation
http://www.aotf.org/html/evidence.html
This site contains learning resources on evidence-based practice, including
reading lists and tutorials on database searching.
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American Journal of Occupational Therapy (AOTA)
http://www.aota.org/ajot/index.asp
See the Evidence-Based Practice series
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Australian Occupational Therapy Journal
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journals/aot
Publishes Critically Appraised Papers
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OT Australia
http://www.ausot.com.au
One of the primary supporters of OTseeker.
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World Federation of Occupational Therapists
http://www.wfot.com
The World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) actively supports Evidence
Based Practice through its "Clinical Resources" section on the WFOT website.
WFOT is currently in the process of forming an International Advisory Group on Evidence
Based Practice as part of its Standards and Quality Programme.
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Centre for Evidence-Based Rehabilitation
http://www-fhs.mcmaster.ca/rehab/research/evidencebased.html
Provides links to evidence based learning resources, steps for the evidence-based
practice process and contact information for research themes within the School of
Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
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OTHER ORGANISATIONS
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CASP - Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (UK)
http://www.phru.nhs.uk/casp/casp.htm
This site includes critical appraisal checklists that can be downloaded (for systematic
reviews, RCTs, cohort studies, qualitative research) information on appraisal workshops,
as well as brief tutorials on quantitative and qualitative methodological issues.
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Centre for Evidence- Based Medicine (Canada)
http://www.cebm.utoronto.ca
This site contains many useful resources (critical appraisal sheets, teaching resources,
calculators for interpreting statistics). It also serves as a support for the book
"Evidence-based Medicine: How to practice and teach EBM" by David L. Sackett,
Sharon E. Straus, W. Scott Richardson, William Rosenberg, and R. Brian Haynes.
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Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (UK)
http://www.cebm.net/index.asp
This site has many useful links, information on levels of evidence, research methodologies,
critically appraised topics (mainly medical), tutorials on EBM and links to the
Evidence Based journal series.
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Centre for Evidence- Based Mental Health
http://www.cebmh.com
This site offers support for mental health professionals by providing access to
high quality evidence-based mental health information as well as providing training.
From this site you can access publications such as Evidence-Based Mental Health
and mental health guidelines
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Cochrane Collaboration
http://www.cochrane.org
This is the web site for the Cochrane Collaboration and provides information about
the Cochrane Collaboration, as well as the abstracts of the Cochrane reviews.
Plain language systematic review summaries
http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/topics/index.html
The Cochrane Collaboration now provides plain language summaries of systematic
reviews designed for consumers
Systematic Review Abstracts in Spanish
http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/es/index.html
The Cochrane Collaboration now also provides abstracts of systematic reviews in
Spanish
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Joanna Briggs Institute (Australia)
http://www.joannabriggs.edu.au
This site contains systematic reviews, mostly related to the nursing profession.
These reviews can be downloaded, some for free. This site also includes 'Best Practice'
information sheets that can be downloaded at no charge. Joanna Briggs established
formal links with associated EBP groups in other professions, including occupational
therapy in 2002.
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Treatment Outcomes Committee of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental
Medicine
http://www.aacpdm.org/home.html
The Treatment Outcomes Committee of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and
Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) aims to critically appraise research relevant to
developmental disability. It then presents this in summarised evidence tables. It
provides excellent debate on the issue of 'levels of evidence' and has developed
a classification of levels of evidence giving detailed recognition of evidence from
single subject designs.
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The National Institute of Clinical Studies (NICS)
http://www.nicsl.com.au/
The National Institute of Clinical Studies (NICS) is Australia’s national
agency for improving health care by helping close important gaps between best available
evidence and current clinical practice.
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DATABASES
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PsychBITE
http://www.PsycBITE.com
PsycBITE is an free evidence database that catalogues studies of cognitive, behavioural
and other treatments for psychological problems and issues occurring as a consequence
of acquired brain impairment. Types of studies contained and appraised for quality
on PsycBITE are: systematic reviews, RCTS, non-RCTs, case series, and single case
experimental designs.
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Clinical Evidence
http://www.clinicalevidence.com/lpBinCE/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn=main-h.htm&2.0
This page provides you with information about the journal, 'Clinical Evidence'.
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Clinical Trials.gov (USA)
http://clinicaltrials.gov
This site has been developed by the National Institute of Health with the aim of
providing "patients, family members and members of the public current information
about clinical research studies".
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Cochrane Library
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/home
This site provides information on The Cochrane Library and links to its many resources,
including Abstracts of Cochrane Systematic Reviews.
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PubMed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi
A free access bibliographic database that includes Medline
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Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE)
http://agatha.york.ac.uk/darehp.htm
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National Guideline Clearinghouse (USA)
http://www.guidelines.gov/index.asp
This site contains a range of clinical guidelines of varying quality. You are also
able to subscribe to an update service that will email you when new guidelines become
available.
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PEDro - Physiotherapy Evidence Database
http://www.pedro.fhs.usyd.edu.au
PEDro refers to the Physiotherapy Evidence Database and is an initiative of the
Centre for Evidence-Based Physiotherapy (CEBP) in Sydney, Australia. PEDro aims
to give physiotherapists and others rapid access to bibliographic details and abstracts
of randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews in physiotherapy. All randomised
controlled trials included in the database have been rated on the PEDro rating scale
for quality (from 0-10) to help you quickly discriminate between trials which are
likely to be valid and interpretable and those which are not. PEDro contains many
trials of relevance to occupational therapy. The site includes an extremely useful
tutorial. Check this site out.
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RehabTrials.org
http://www.rehabtrials.org
RehabTrials is a registry of randomised controlled trials related to rehabilitation.
Populations include people with spinal cord injury, stroke, traumatic brain injury,
amputations, and studies with both adults and children. Interventions studied include
technology and equipment, pressure garments, cushions, and constraint induced movement
therapy.
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SUMSearch
http://sumsearch.uthscsa.edu/searchform45.htm
SUMSearch is a search tool on the Internet for evidence-based medical information.
It queries a number of key databases, such as MEDLINE, and the Database of Reviews
of Effectiveness (DARE) and aims to select the most appropriate source, format the
search query, and provide a single document to the searcher.
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Turning Research Into Practice (TRIP) Database
http://www.tripdatabase.com/index.cfm
"The TRIP Database is a meta-search engine that searches across 61 sites of
high-quality medical information. By searching the TRIP Database you have direct,
hyperlinked access to the largest collection of 'evidence-based' material on the
web as well as articles from premier on-line journals such as the BMJ, JAMA, NEJM
etc".
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Rehabilitation Guidelines
http://fss.hs.uottawa.ca/EBCpg/english/main.htm
This web site contains a database of web-based Evidence-based Clinical Practice
Guidelines relevant to rehabilitation.
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JOURNALS AND USER'S GUIDES TO THE LITERATURE
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American Journal of Occupational Therapy (AOTA)
http://www.aota.org/ajot/index.asp
See the Evidence-Based Practice series
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Australian Occupational Therapy Journal
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journals/aot
Publishes Critically Appraised Papers
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BMJ.com
http://bmj.com
The full text of articles in the British Medical Journal are available online at
this site. The BMJ has many useful articles discussing quantitative and qualitative
research methodologies as well as evidence-based practice issues.
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Clinical Evidence
http://www.ovid.com/products/clinical/clinicalevidence.cfm
This page provides you with information about the journal, 'Clinical Evidence'.
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Evidence Based Health Care
http://www.harcourt-international.com/journals/ebhc
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Evidence Based Medicine
http://ebm.bmjjournals.com
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Evidence Based Mental Health
http://www.ebmentalhealth.com
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Free Medical Journals.com
http://www.freemedicaljournals.com/htm/index.htm
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Users' Guides to the Health Care Literature
http://www.cche.net/usersguides/main.asp
This site provides access to the complete set of Users' Guide to Evidence-Based
Practice - these guides are extremely informative and helpful.
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OTHER RESOURCES
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Discussion Lists for Evidence Based Practice
http://www.shef.ac.uk/~scharr/ir/email.html
This site lists contact details and joining instructions for a range of evidence-based
practice email discussion lists.
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The National electronic Library for Health
http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/
The National electronic Library for Health is an extensive resource with access
to many useful resources. Some content requires a password login.
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Social Care Online
http://www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/
Social Care Online provides access to the UK's most complete range of information
and research on all aspects of social care and includes journal articles, websites,
research reviews, legislation and government documents, and service user knowledge.
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Netting the Evidence
http://www.shef.ac.uk/~scharr/ir/netting
This site provides an extensive listing of web sites related to evidence-based practice.
It contains many useful links to all the important evidence-based practice sites.
Bookmark this site!
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The Campbell Collaboration
http://www.campbellcollaboration.org
The International Campbell Collaboration (C2) is a non-profit organisation
that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about the effects of
interventions in the social, behavioural and educational arenas.
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