Question
In regard to systematic reviews for Evidence-Based Practice (EBP), is there a recommended search engine or database to find these reviews?
Answer
Thanks for the question. Evidence-Based Practice has come to the forefront of the profession in the past few years, specifically in the area of amplification. There have been several publications in the audiology literature where I recommend you start your research.
The July/August 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology (JAAA) contains a collection of papers on the topic of amplification and EBP that were originally presented at a 2004 special two-day workshop sponsored by the Independent Hearing Aid Fitting Forum in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
You should also consult the February 2007 issue of JAAA as it contains another paper on "A Systematic Review of Health-Related Quality of Life and Hearing Aids: Final Report of the American Academy of Audiology Task Force on the Health-Related Quality of Life Benefits of Amplification in Adults". A copy of this paper is available on the AAA website at www.audiology.org/hearingaidsdo. We have also published a related article by Dr. Valente titled: Guideline for Audiologic Management of the Adult Patient.
Here at Audiology Online, we have published several other papers/presentations on evidence-based practice over the past year:
- Predicting Real World Hearing Aid Benefit with Speech Audiometry: An Evidence-Based Review
- Changes in Hearing Aid Benefit Over Time: An Evidence-Based Review
- Making Use of Systematic Reviews: EBP for the Busy Clinician
You were not specific in the topic area that you wanted to review, so you may need to look for additional EBP papers, or you may need to conduct your own review of the scientific evidence. Robyn Cox (2005) provided an excellent overview of EBP and would be a great starting point for you.
Generally speaking, if you want to review the literature on a topic, you can do this by using various web sites. Here are several useful sites that you can use to search and find articles related to audiology. Please note that there are various levels of evidence that can range from expert opinion to studies involving randomized controls (Cox, 2005), so be sure to take this into consideration when reviewing the literature.
- Pub Med - www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/ - Premier search database for peer reviewed medical journals including all major audiology journals.
- Google Scholar - scholar.google.com - Google's search engine for peer reviewed journals and articles.
- CINAHL - www.cinahl.com - Database of nursing and allied health journals.
- Audiology Online - www.audiologyonline.com - A range or items, from peer reviewed articles/text courses to expert opinion. Also includes articles from The Hearing Journal.
Cox, R.M. (2005). Evidenced-based practice in provision of amplification. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology. 16(7), 419-438.
Dr. Paul Dybala is the President and Editor of Audiology Online (www.audiologyonline.com), the world leader in online hearing health education and information.
