How to Identify, Interpret and Apply the Scientific Literature to Practice

This chapter addresses how to formulate a clinical query to perform a thorough literature search and assess the trustworthiness and reliability of the available evidence to enhance patient care. Utilizing a PICO(T) framework is helpful when treating patients in order to formulate differential diagnoses. The chapter provides an outline of search strategies that will help the oral medicine practitioner retrieve the most useful information, as well as descriptions of the commonly used evidence-based resources. A search strategy for evidence in order to decide a course of action within a clinical setting or answer a clinical question will differ from a search strategy for conducting a literature review or a systematic review. Clinicians informing their practice using scientific literature are interested in answering questions directly related to their day-to-day activities. There are two main issues that deviate estimates from clinical studies from the truth: bias and confounding; and random error.