Grey literature: Guidelines
General and National Sources for Guidelines
Clinical practice guidelines bring together the best available evidence and make recommendations intended to optimise the care of patients. They are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options.
Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) can be found both in the journal and grey literatures. Some databases allow you to search for or filter a search to just guidelines (see below). You can also locate CPGs using more general sites for health-related information, such as the TRIP Database, NICE, and the ECRI Trust. Try speciality guidelines by organisation, topic or country through OpenClinical. Other sources for practice guidelines and related tools such as care pathways, care bundles, order sets and protocols are listed below.
Guideline Sources
- BMJ Best Practice This link opens in a new windowLimit search results, by Guidelines in box to the right.
- CINAHL Complete (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new windowLimit results by Publication Type to Practice Guidelines.
- DynaMed This link opens in a new windowSelect a specific monograph on the topic (e.g. asthma in adults and adolescents), scroll down in the Topic outline on the left, and click on the Guidelines and Resources section.
- Medline (Ovid) This link opens in a new windowLimit search results by Publication Type = Practice Guideline, or Guideline
Professional medical organizations will often publish CPGs specific to their specialty on their Web sites. If you are searching for guidelines related to diabetes diagnosis or treatment, for example, you may want to check a site such as the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. They link to 'Clinical Practice Guidelines' under the general 'Publications' area of their site.
Often, a quick site search for "guidelines" can help quickly determine whether CPGs are available.