Library: Internet Resources for Primary Care: Internet Sites for Treatment Guidelines

Locating Clinical Practice Guidelines

There are many ways to locate clinical practice guidelines. In this video, one of the librarians will introduce you to clinical practice guidelines and how to find them.

Library Resources for Locating Clinical Practice Guidelines

Essential Evidence Plus This link opens in a new window
Search a variety of evidence-based resources including practice guidelines, evidence summaries, calculators, and abstracts. You must create a personal account (in the menu in the upper right) to use this resource.
DynaMed This link opens in a new window
DynaMed is a clinical reference tool designed for use at the point of care.
UpToDate This link opens in a new window
UpToDate is a clinical reference tool with review summaries on a wide range of clinical topics.
The first time you use this link, you will be prompted to create a personal account.

There is also an app for DynaMed if you want to use it on your mobile device.

DynaMed Mobile App
Clinical reference resource covering over 3,000 topics. See instructions for logging in to the app.

Citing information from DynaMed

Here is an example for the reference list entry for the DynaMed article on "Acute Otitis Media in Adults":

Hanna, B. (2021). Acute otitis media in adults. DynaMed. Retrieved July 1, 2021 from https://www.dynamed.com/condition/acute-otitis-media-in-adults

Since the purpose of DynaMed is to evaluate the existing evidence related to a particular topic, most of what you find in DynaMed is based on other sources. If you need to cite something from DynaMed that came from another source, then use the original source's author and date, "as cited in" the DynaMed entry's author and date. For example:

(Earwood, et al., 2018, as cited in Hanna, 2021)

A note about this reference and citation:

The "as cited in" type of citation is for secondary sources and is only supposed to be used when the original source is not available. However, for the purposes of this paper in this course, the faculty have decided to use this method regardless of the availability of the original source. This will make the source of your information very clear for faculty grading your paper.
In the reference, you may have noticed that there is a retrieval date, even though those are no longer used in the 7th edition of the APA Manual. Retrieval dates are still used in cases where the content is designed to change over time and versions are not archived. This reference example was based off the example shown at APA's website

More Resources

American Academy of Family Physicians
The American Family Physician is a publication of the American Academy of Family Physicians and is available on line under "News and Publications" on their home page. It gives you an index to help you find what you need.
Centers for Disease Control
This link has guidelines in the treatment of infectious disease. There are also links to the Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report that give statistics and updates about all diseases.
Merck Manual Professional Version
This is an excellent resource for medical information and news, clinical guidelines, patient education and much more. Check it out!
A Practical Guide to Clinical Medicine
A comprehensive physical examination and clinical education site for medical students and other health care professionals

Consumer Health Information Resources

The following are consumer health information resources which are NOT appropriate for case study references.

MedlinePlus
This is a consumer health information resource from the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. It includes health topics, drug information, directories, health tutorials with sound and pictures, current health news, and clinical trials.
ClinicalTrials.gov
This is also a consumer health information resource from the National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. It gives the consumer the latest in clinical trial research.