LibGuides: Nursing: Websites, Grey Literature &amp; Google Search Tips

CNSA
Canadian Nursing Students' Association
Canadian Patient Safety Institute
Topic page
BCCNM
British Columbia College of Nurses & Midwives. Go the the Registered Nurses tab for RN specific resources.
NNPBC
RN portal of BC's Nurses & Nurse Practitioner Association
CNA
Canadian Nurses Association
Search Engine for Canadian Public Health Associations
Created by the Ontario Public Health Libraries Association. Find a list of websites it searches below the search box.

The EBM search tools tab on the journal articles page of this guide has more Evidence Based Medicine discovery tools.

TUTORIAL: Introduction to Evidence Based Practice
Great multi-module tutorial from Duke University Medical Center Library
TUTORIAL: Evidence-Based Practice
From the University of Minnesota
Cinahl Evidence-Based Care Sheets
Summaries on specific key topics focused on nursing practice, these evidence-based care sheets incorporate current evidence, statistics, research and references on a given topic.These are in the Cinahl database which requires a KPU login for access off campus.
Clinical Practice Guidelines InfoBase
Maintained by Joule, a subsidiary of the Canadian Medical Association
BC Clinical Practice Guidelines and Protocols
"BC Guidelines are clinical practice guidelines and protocols that provide recommendations to B.C. practitioners on delivering high quality, appropriate care to patients with specific clinical conditions or diseases."
Clinical Practice Guidelines for Nurses in Primary Care
Created by Health Canada for community health nurses providing care in remote or isolated communities.
Health Evidence
Evidence-Based information on public health interventions, hosted by McMaster University
Nursing Best Practice Guidelines
From the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario
Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH)
While not peer reviewed, this not-for-profit government agency creates independent research and reports to facilitate evidence-based decision making among Canadian medical practitioners.
HealthCareCan
Policy documents from "...the national voice of action for health organizations and hospitals across Canada"
EPC Evidence-Based Reports
Produced by the Evidenced-Based Practice Centers (EPC) in the United States and Canada under the auspices of the American Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Institute of Health Economics
Reports, reviews & papers from the IHE, a non-profit ogranization witha mission "to inform coordinated, innovative, evidence-guided health policy and practice"
Cost Effectiveness Analysis Registery
Thousands of cost utility evaluations on diseases and treatments, from the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health at Tufts Medical Center

Canada Benefits
Benefit Finder tool which tells you which federal or provincial government benefits a person may be eligible for.
BC Public Health
Information for Public Health professionals. Also browse the Provincial Health Officer's reports and current health topics.
BC Ministry of Health
Search reports and publications.
Provincial Health Authorities
Worksafe BC
Reports & publications on occupational health and safety.
Search Engine for Canadian Public Health Information
Created by the Ontario Public Health Libraries Association. Find a list of all the sites it searches below the search box.

BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres
Health and Wellness resources
BC Government Indigenous Health page
First Nations Health Authority
Health page on the Library's Indigenous Studies guide
Indigenous Health Reports
From the BC Ministry of Health website, these reports are created by or in partnership with the Office of Indigenous Health
Indigenous Services Canada
Health care services, benefits, careers and information
National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health
Resources and Publications
Provincial Health Services Authority
Indigenous Health programs and services

bc211
Find government and social services available in your community
BC Cancer Agency
Cancer health information and pages on different types of cancer
Consumer Health Portal
Health Libraries Association of BC's Consumer Health Information Portal
Lab Tests Online
From the Association for Clinical Biochemistry & Laboratory Medicine in the UK.
SafeCare BC
"Established in 2013, SafeCare BC is an industry funded, non-profit association working to ensure injury free, safe working conditions for continuing care workers in BC."

If you are looking for more information than these websites provide, try searching for a non-profit medical or patient association related to the disease you are interested in.

For example, the Alzheimer's Society of Canada would have a lot of reliable information for Alzheimer patients, medical practitioners and family members.

For some search tips, go to the Google Tips tab in this box

Cinahl Quick Lessons
Quick Lessons are overviews with information mapped to nursing workflow (i.e. description/etiology, signs and symptoms, assessment, treatment goals, red flags, what to tell the patient/patient’s family). These are in the Library's Cinahl nursing database so will require your KPU login to access off campus.
Merck Manual - Consumer Version
Information on Medical Topics and Symptoms. On most topics you can also click through to the Professional Version of the Merck Manual for physicians level information.
Medline Plus Encyclopedia
Medline Plus is an online health resource maintained by the American National Library of Medicine
Health Canada
Disease information page
Healthlink BC
Search for health topics
Fraser Health Authority
Health Topics page
Centers For Disease Control
CDC's Health Topics page
World Health Organization Health Topics

PsychiatryOnline This link opens in a new window
This database includes online access to the DSM 5 - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Off campus access restricted to current Kwantlen Polytechnic University students and employees.

Never searched the DSM in PsychiatryOnline before? Watch the video on this page of the Library's Psychology guide.

If you are looking for more information than these websites provide, try searching for a non-profit medical or patient association related to the disease you are interested in.

For example, the Alzheimer's Society of Canada would have a lot of reliable information for Alzheimer patients, medical practitioners and family members.

For some search tips, go to the Google Tips tab in this box.

Grey Literature is information published outside the usual streams of academic publishing, but may still contain valuable, high quality information.

Examples include reports, research or working papers from:

professional associations
non-profit organizations
non-partisan private associations
regulatory agencies or governing bodies
academic or research institutions or repositories

In addition to traditional report/research articles, you can also find thesis and dissertations, audits, standards, regulations, professional guidelines and benchmarks, summaries of clinical trials or other research, surveys, policy & procedure documentation and conference proceedings.

You can find some medical related search tools on the EBM search tools tab of the journal articles page of this guide. Many of these will include reports, guidelines and other grey literature in their search results.

Depending on what you are looking for, Google's Advanced Search interface may also bring up good sources.

If you use Google, think about who might be interested in gathering information on your particular topic, and what words may appear in their websites or documentation.

Some Advanced Google Search suggestions:

add the word "association" to your search terms to find professional or non-for-profit organizations involved in your area of interest
if you are looking for reports, try limiting your search to .pdf file format, which is the most common format used for uploading documents
limit your search to a particular url domain (eg. limiting to .gc.ca websites will limit search results to Canadian federal government websites; .edu will limit results to American university & college websites; .org will limit search results to non-profit organizations)

Not finding what you need?

From our Ask Us page you can:

Visit the one of the Library's Research Help desks in person
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Book a virtual or in-person appointment with a subject specialist librarian (like me! :-)
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Library employees are monitoring the queues above and will respond to you as soon as possible.

Go to the Ask Us page

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Nursing