Public Health

There are many different ways to approach Evidence Based Practice (EBP). Please see below for the brief overview of suggested steps.

Step 1 - Ask

• The  first step in EBP is to develop an answerable question. Once you have developed your question, standard procedure is to break your question into a searchable question using the PICO method.
• PICO stands for
  • P - Population
  • I - Intervention(s)
  • C - Comparison
  • O - Outcome

Step 2 - Acquire Evidence

• The second step in EBP is to find evidence on your topic. Once you have developed a PICO question, you can break your question into a search string.
  • Remember to put each part of the PICO question into it's own ( ) and to use Boolean operators to connect your search terms
    • (Population) AND (Intervention) AND (Comparison) AND (Outcome)
  • Not all topics will have a lot of evidence available. If you are not able to find evidence you need, make your search broader by focusing on
    • (Population) AND (Intervention) AND (Outcome)
  • Remember to use lots of different words to describe each area of the PICO, and to connect those words with OR
    • If the Population is college students, use something like this: (college students OR university students)
    • Use " " around words to help the database understand that those terms are connected
      • ("college students" OR "university students")
• Enter your search string into an appropriate database. You can find a list of databases available at Sacramento State University Library here, and you can limit the databases to a specific major by using the drop down menu "All Subjects" located in the upper left, under A-Z databases.
• Go through your database search results to find materials that meet your criteria and are of interest to you.
  • You will mostly like want to use peer reviewed research articles over books, letters to the editor, and videos for a research paper
• If you can't access an article that is of interest  to you, you can request that the library send you a copy of the article. If you need to request an article, please use the Interlibrary Loan Service, ILLiad, available for Sacramento State Students here.

Step 3 - Appraise

• Read the articles you've found and consider if the articles have data that are relevant to your research question
  • Relevance is how closely the article topic and the evidence presented in the article are to your clinical question
  • Consider:
    • Does the study investigate a population that is the same or similar to my population?
    • Does the study use or review an intervention that is relevant to my clinical question?
    • Do the outcomes of the study relate to my clinical question?
    • If the study does not match my PICO elements, does it relate to them in such a way that I can still use the research?
• Appraise the articles for:
  • Validity (effective investigation of the research question)
  • Impact (size of the effect described)
  • Applicability (usefulness in practice)
• The research design and methodology described in the article are key to validity and trustworthiness of the article

Step 4 - Apply

• Applying the evidence means different things in different settings. For most Sacramento State students, this is going to mean using the evidence to support their research and/or projects.