Health and Human Sciences (HHS)

Pyramid of evidence-based practice information 

To find systematic reviews and other types of study publications, use the All-in-One HHS Article Search box and enter a few important words about your topic followed by the word "systematic" (or whatever type of study publication you would like to find).

The All-in-One HHS Search box searches health, psychology, science, education, and related resources including MEDLINE, CINAHL, ERIC, PsycINFO, SocINDEX, SPORTDiscus, Academic Search Complete, and more. Use whenever you need to find articles. You will find many e-books, too.  

1. Search using 2 to 4 important words or concepts about your topic. Focus on a word or phrase related to the primary focus of your research and practice – the person, priority, patient, population, problem, plan, practitioner, or professional.
2. Go through your first page or two of results and find results that seem like what you need. 
3. Look for title or subject words in articles you like and use those to further refine the search. If you need more information on specific issues within your wider topic, add in or change search words to reflect what need to find.
4. If you need to limit your results by peer review status or date, look to the left of your results and locate the REFINE RESULTS column.  Under the column in a section called “Limiters,” click boxes and make date changes as needed.
5. To get at the full text of things you like, do the following. If you get a "PDF Full Text" image, click that and full text should open. If you only get the purple "Find Full Text" link, click that. A link to get at the electronic full text or, in some cases, information on how to find the print version in the library appears. If such links do not show, click the "No full text available? Try Interlibrary Loan" link that shows after clicking "Find Full Text." If prompted to log into Interlibrary Loan, use your Catamount (student) or WCU (employee) ID and password.
6. To save citations, click “Add to folder” beside the article titles. Click the top folder icon to email or download selections before exiting. When emailing, specify a citation format (AMA, APA, etc.) by selecting the "Citation Format" option - do not trust 100%!

If you need to write up what resources you are searching, you may want to adapt the following text. Please note that you'll find much more detailed suggested text specific to different review methodologies at https://researchguides.wcu.edu/HHS/publicationandpresentation.

Healthcare and social sciences-focused resources searched included the research databases APA PsycInfo, APA PsycTests, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Cochrane Collaboration's systematic reviews, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Education Source, Environment Complete, ERIC, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, SocINDEX, and SPORTdiscus as well as multidisciplinary resources such as Academic Search.