Competence 3: Carrying out a search to find information

“How do you find the information?”

This is your opportunity to identify exactly where relevant information can be found. You need to be able to check the suitability of available sources of information to ensure they meet your need; to use keywords from your topic in order to whittle down the most relevant information; and to control the amount of information that you find by using broader or narrower terms as appropriate.

Health information published on the Internet has huge implications for health care. In addition to trustworthy sites, there is also out-of-date, misleading or incorrect information to be found. When searching online, it's best to use the most trustworthy sources of information available. Many authoritative web-based resources are free at point of access and some are aimed directly at patients, such as NHS Direct, NHS Choices and Patient UK, so nurses may choose to help patients find authoritative information in this way.

Always take care when using a search site such as Google. Search engines are undoubtedly popular as they provide a quick route to information, but they do not exercise any quality control over the sites they retrieve.

Starting a search

Once you have your question, and you have chosen a trustworthy source of information, you are ready to search. 'Search' is a feature common to many online resources, including bibliographic databases or websites, and you’ll often find a search ‘box’ in a prominent place on the home page of most resources. However, you can waste a lot of time and effort searching, even within a specialist resource. This is often the result of using words in your search that are not sufficiently specific, or that do not omit the areas that you would like to actively avoid. By selecting the 'advanced search' feature, which is also common to many online resources - indeed, it's often located very close to the 'search' box - you can select more specific search criteria.

RCN library

The RCN library offers a rich source of information both in terms of physical materials - books, DVDs, journals - and the e-library, including over 700 e-journals, 400 e-books and information databases such as the British Nursing Index, Cinahl, Medline, Maternity and Infant Care, ChildData and Ageinfo. All resources within the RCN library are free to RCN members.

The RCN e-library FAST service provides pre-prepared literature searches on current topics. Select a topic from the list and a search for journal articles will be carried out on the British Nursing Index database.

You can learn how to make the most of the RCN e-library with the Learning Zone resource 'Using your RCN e-library' - a link is available in the 'Further learning' section. It includes a series of step by step guides to help you develop your literature searching skills.

NICE and SIGN

In the UK, the two main producers of evidence-based clinical guidelines - apart from professional bodies such as the Royal College of Nursing - are the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN).

NICE is an independent organisation. It provides guidance, sets quality standards and manages a national database to improve people’s health and prevent and treat ill health in England and Wales. NICE makes recommendations to the NHS, local authorities and other organisations in the public, private, voluntary and community sectors on how to improve people’s health and prevent illness and disease.

The NICE guideline development programme is delivered by six collaborating centres. NICE also provides public health guidance and appraises health technologies such as medicines and procedures. NICE has also launched NHS Evidence. Which allows everyone working in health and social care in England to access a wide range of health information, to help them deliver quality patient care.

SIGN works exclusively on clinical guideline development. While its remit is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of clinical care for the people of Scotland, it also collaborates on guideline projects with NICE.

National e-Libraries

Each of the four UK countries has an e-library which provides online access for NHS staff to sources of information such as e-journals, e-books, and bibliographic databases. Some of the resources are accessible to all, whereas others require an Athens password. Content of the e-libraries varies between countries. For example, England has a specialist library for guidelines (Guideline Finder) and one for protocols and care pathways. The Scottish (The Knowledge Network) and English e-libraries both include specialist e-libraries for a wide range of practice areas and subjects.

The e-libraries are:

Cochrane library

All four e-libraries listed above contain links to the Cochrane library which contains:

Bibliographic databases

There are many databases you could use in your search, but the following are some of the most commonly used. They are all available free through your RCN membership:

You may want to record any key actions that you want to implement in your daily practice, or any reflections related to your learning, in the 'Taking action' section. You can type straight into the PDF documents, which can then be saved onto your computer and uploaded to your e-Portfolio, as evidence of your learning.