Terminology

Before moving on through the modules, you need to become familiar with the following terminology that refers to different types of research. Understanding these terms will enable you to select the different forms of primary and secondary evidence within a citation database.

Terminology	Definitions
Abstract	A short structured or unstructured summary of a published research paper. The abstract appears in healthcare databases and at the start of a published paper and is usually written by the authors
Article reviews* (evidence-based)	These contain enhanced abstracts of chosen articles and include commentary on the applicability of the study to clinical practice. ACP Journal Club produces article reviews
Case reports	A report on a series of patients with an outcome of interest. No control group is involved
Cohort study	Involves two matched groups (cohorts) of patients, one that received the exposure of interest and one that did not, and follows these patients forward for the outcome of interest (a prospective or inception cohort study). Alternatively, the cohorts are defined at a point of time in the past and information is collected on subsequent outcomes (a restrospective cohort study)
Evidence-based medicine reviews (EBMR)	An Ovid database that combines secondary sources of evidence from the ACP Journal Club, the Cochrane Library, and MEDLINE
Evidence summary	Provide a critical appraisal synthesis for a specific research article or evidence on a specific topic, so that practitioners can easily determine validity and reliability
Meta-analysis	The results from several studies, identified in a systematic review, are combined and summarised quantitatively
Pre-appraised evidence	Resources that have undergone a filtering process to include only research of higher quality and that are regularly updated so that the evidence is current
Qualitative study	Qualitative studies usually explore the ‘quality’ of an experience – for example a patient’s experience of a hospital stay, or a new model of care
Quantitative study	Quantitative studies measure variables such as time, treatment, and weight and expresses the relationship among the variables using statistics
Randomised controlled trial	In a randomised controlled trial, participants are randomly allocated to different groups – the intervention (such as a drug) group or another group (such as placebo treatment or a different drug). Groups are followed up for a specified period and analysed in terms of outcomes defined at the outset (death, heart attack, serum cholesterol level, etc.) The studies include methodologies that reduce the potential for bias and allow for comparison between both groups
Systematic reviews	A summary of scientific studies that use explicit methods to perform a comprehensive literature search and critical appraisal, and use appropriate statistical techniques to obtain a reliable overview
Topic reviews* (evidence-based)	Reviews of studies on one topic or area of interest, selected by means of strict inclusion criteria, analysed and presented as detailed structured reports of the findings. Systematic reviews are a good example of topic reviews

NOTE: * Not all ‘reviews’ are evidence-based. A ‘review’ is an overview of a topic, the limit ‘review articles’ in Ovid has this older meaning of an overview of a topic which may not be systematic, evidence-based, or free of bias.

You can also open and/or print the entire Glossary that is available at the end of each EBP Learning Module.