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Books, journals and more in the NLM Collections

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275 million new genetic variants identified in nih precision medicine data.

Study details the unprecedented scale, diversity, and power of the All of Us Research Program.

COVID-19 vaccination and boosting during pregnancy protects infants for six months

Findings reinforce the importance of receiving both a COVID-19 vaccine and booster during pregnancy.

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A potential new way to prevent noise-induced hearing loss: trapping excess zinc.

Hearing loss is a pervasive problem, affecting one in eight people aged 12 and up in the U.S. While hearing loss has multiple causes, an important one for millions of people is exposure to loud noises, which can lead to gradual hearing loss, or people can lose their hearing all at once. The only methods used to prevent noise-induced hearing loss today are avoiding loud noises altogether or wearing earplugs or other protective devices during loud activities. But findings from an intriguing new NIH-supported study exploring the underlying causes of this form of hearing loss suggest it may be possible to protect hearing in a different way: with treatments targeting excess and damaging levels of zinc in the inner ear.

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Unraveling the Complexity of Cellular Identity in Health and Disease

Better understanding a cell’s identity and function—its “phenotype”—is fundamental to many medical discoveries. Fortunately, new technology has made a deeper understanding of cellular phenotypes more accessible than ever. Learn how NLM experts and others are working to accelerate this field in a new blog from NLM Scientific Director Dr. Richard H. Scheuermann.

How to Find Primary Research Articles on Google Scholar

primary research article finder

How to Find Primary Research Articles on Google Scholar can be a daunting task. But with the right tips and tricks, you can quickly locate relevant sources to inform your work or study. By leveraging advanced search features like My Library, you’ll be able to stay organized while exploring topics of interest in no time. Let’s dive into how best to find primary research articles on Google Scholar so that you can get started uncovering valuable insights today.

Table of Contents

What is Google Scholar?

Searching for primary research articles on google scholar, tips for effective searches on google scholar, utilizing advanced search features, keeping track of your research with my library on google scholar, additional resources for finding primary research articles on google scholar, faqs in relation to how to find primary research articles on google scholar, how do i search for only primary articles in google scholar, how do i find primary research articles, how do i find research articles on google scholar, how do you tell if an article is a primary or secondary source.

Google Scholar is an online search engine that allows users to find primary research articles. Google Scholar, established in 2004, is a powerful search engine that gives access to scholarly documents including theses, preprints, and books. By using advanced algorithms and natural language processing techniques it offers a more comprehensive view of academic publications than traditional databases or search engines like Google.

How to Find Primary Research Articles on Google Scholar has numerous advantages; it provides a convenient way for researchers to quickly find applicable sources needed for their research without having to browse through many web pages or databases. Secondly, its sophisticated algorithms allow researchers to refine their searches based on relevance and date published to easily narrow down results for specific topics or time periods. Finally, because it indexes content from across the web – including open-access repositories such as PubMed Central – users have access to full-text versions of articles that may not be available elsewhere.

Accessing Google Scholar is easy; simply go to scholar.google.com and start searching with keywords related to your topic area or use the Advanced Search feature if you want more control over your results (e.g., restricting by author name). You can also sign up for an account which will enable you to save searches, create alerts when new content is added that matches your criteria, and organize references into collections known as ‘My Library’ – making tracking progress on a project much more efficient.

Google Scholar is an invaluable resource for researchers looking to access primary research articles. With the right search techniques, you can easily find full-text articles on Google Scholar and maximize your research potential. Next, we’ll explore how to use the search interface and refine results in order to locate these resources more effectively.

“Easily find primary research articles for your #R&D project with Google Scholar. Advanced algorithms and natural language processing make it easier to narrow down results quickly.” #Cypris Click to Tweet

To make the process easier, it is important to understand the search interface and refine your results with filters and preferences.

The first step in searching for primary research articles on Google Scholar is understanding the search interface. This includes learning how to use keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), quotation marks (” “) for exact phrases, and wildcards (*). These search parameters can be employed to refine the results, making them pertinent to your inquiry.

Utilizing filters and personal preferences to narrow down search results can expedite the discovery of what is needed. With advanced features like citation tracking, “My Library” which allows users to save their searches, and “Similar Articles” for discovering related topics within a field of study, the research process is made easier. Additionally, keywords such as Boolean operators (AND, OR NOT), quotation marks (” “) for exact phrases, and wildcards (*) can be used to narrow down results in order to make them more relevant.

Finally, finding full-text articles is key when researching primary research papers on Google Scholar. The platform offers access to free versions of some publications through its “Find Full Text @ Your Library” feature but many require a subscription or purchase fee before viewing them in full detail online or downloading them as PDFs.

Exploring Google Scholar for primary research articles can be laborious, yet with some useful tips and tricks you can enhance your search results. Now that we have an understanding of the search interface, let’s explore how to refine our results and find full-text articles using advanced features such as filters and preferences.

Unlock the power of Google Scholar for primary research papers with advanced features like citation tracking, My Library, and Similar Articles. Use Boolean operators & wildcards to refine your search results. #GoogleScholar #ResearchPapers Click to Tweet

Google Scholar is an invaluable tool for researchers, scientists, and engineers looking to stay up-to-date on the latest research in their field. With its advanced search features, it can help you quickly find primary research articles that are relevant to your project or interests. Here are some suggestions to optimize your utilization of Google Scholar when seeking out primary research papers.

Google Scholar has several advanced search options that allow you to refine your searches and find more specific results. For example, you can limit your search by date range, language, author name, or journal title. Boolean operators, like “AND” and “OR”, can be utilized to form a single query by combining various keywords.

how to find primary research articles on google scholar

To refine your search even further, you can utilize the filters and preferences available on Google Scholar to narrow down results according to peer-reviewed papers from journals with high-impact factors or exclude certain authors or topics. For instance, if you want only peer-reviewed papers from journals with high-impact factors then simply select those filters before conducting your search. Additionally, if there are certain authors or topics that you would like excluded from your results then this too can be done via the preferences menu within Google Scholar.

Once you have located some applicable articles through basic keyword searches, delving into associated citations and related content can help to expand your understanding of the topic. This is especially helpful if there is not much information available on a particular subject yet, but still offers potential avenues of exploration worth pursuing further down the line. By exploring related articles and citations associated with each article one will often uncover new ideas which could potentially lead them toward interesting discoveries.

By making use of the sophisticated search capabilities, filters, and preferences provided by Google Scholar, one can easily identify primary research material related to their requirements. My Library on Google Scholar is an excellent tool for organizing and tracking your research; let’s explore how it works.

Key Takeaway  Google Scholar provides advanced search features, filters and preferences to help researchers quickly locate primary research articles relevant to their project or interests. By making use of these tools and exploring related articlescitations associated with each article one can uncover new ideas that could lead them towards interesting discoveries. Google Scholar is a great aid in locating pertinent research articles.

My Library on Google Scholar is a great asset for scientists and innovators to monitor their research progress. My Library enables users to construct a personalized repository of scholarly works, which they can organize into categories, export as bibliographies, or share with others.

Setting up a personal library in My Library is easy. To create a personal library, simply click the “My Library” link at the top right corner of any page on Google Scholar and select “Create new library” from the drop-down menu. Once your library has been created, you can start adding articles by clicking the “Save” button next to each article title in your search results list.

Organizing your library is also simple; simply drag and drop articles into different folders within My Library for easy access later on. You can also create collections of related topics or research themes which are great for organizing large amounts of data quickly and easily. Moreover, you can label articles with descriptors to make them easier to locate when needed.

By utilizing My Library on Google Scholar, researchers can easily keep track of their research and stay organized. Additionally, by exploring other databases in conjunction with Google Scholar as well as open-access journals and interlibrary loan services, they can find even more primary research articles to further their studies.

Key Takeaway  My Library on Google Scholar is a great resource for researchers and innovators to stay organized with their research. Creating a library is straightforward – just hit the ‘Create new library’ button in the top right of any page on Google Scholar, and then drag & drop articles into collections or folders to keep them ordered. Moreover, you can assign labels or tags to make it simpler to locate the material when necessary.

It can provide access to a wide variety of sources, including journal articles, books, and conference papers. Nevertheless, in order to broaden one’s search range, other databases and sources can be used alongside Google Scholar.

Using Other Databases in Conjunction with Google Scholar: Many academic institutions have their own subscription-based library databases that can be accessed through the institution’s website or portal. These databases may include full-text versions of some journals not available on Google Scholar as well as more comprehensive indexing than what is available on Google Scholar. Moreover, numerous universities offer access to specialized databases such as Web of Science or Scopus that enable users to search across multiple areas and sources simultaneously.

Open-access journals, which receive funding from sources such as the NIH and Wellcome Trusts, provide free online content under Creative Commons licenses for readers to share or reuse without permission. Open-access journals typically make all content freely available online and often use Creative Commons licenses so readers are free to share and reuse material without permission from the publisher or author(s). While these publications tend to focus more heavily on scientific topics rather than humanities topics they still contain valuable information worth exploring when searching for primary research articles related specifically to science fields such as biology or medicine.

If a desired article cannot be located elsewhere, interlibrary loan services may provide an avenue to acquire it through either physical or digital means. Through this service, users can request copies of materials held by another library either physically (through mail) or electronically (via email). This allows researchers who do not have immediate access to certain materials due to geographical restrictions the ability to acquire them nonetheless, thus greatly expanding their research capabilities beyond what would otherwise be possible with just local resources alone.

Key Takeaway  Google Scholar is a great tool for finding primary research articles, however there are other databases and resources that can be used in conjunction with it to maximize search capabilities. Additionally, open access journals may provide valuable content related to scientific fields while interlibrary loan services can also help researchers acquire materials from libraries located elsewhere.

To search for primary articles in Google Scholar, first, go to the main page and select ‘Advanced Search’. In the Advanced Search window, check off the box that says ‘Only show results from content I can access’ and then select ‘Include Patents’. Finally, click on ‘Search’. This will filter out all secondary sources such as reviews or books, leaving only primary research articles relevant to your query.

Primary research materials can be obtained through multiple avenues, such as searching online repositories, utilizing sophisticated search strategies, and consulting specialists in the discipline. Utilizing PubMed and other online databases, researchers can access an abundance of primary research articles covering a broad range of topics. Advanced search techniques involve combining keywords with Boolean operators (AND/OR) to refine searches for specific results. Consulting experts in the field is also an effective way to locate relevant primary research articles as they have specialized knowledge about certain areas that may not be available from other sources.

Begin your hunt for research articles on Google Scholar by inputting a keyword or phrase in the search field. You can refine your search results by applying filters such as date of publication, author name, and topic area. To further narrow down your search results you can use advanced search features like exact phrases and multiple keywords. Additionally, you may access scholarly literature through library databases that are connected to Google Scholar. Finally, save time by setting up email alerts for newly published papers related to topics of interest.

A primary source is an original document or record that provides first-hand information about a particular topic. Examples of primary sources can include interviews, diaries, letters, articles from when an event occurred, and photos and videos taken during the occurrence. Secondary sources are documents or records created after the fact by someone who did not experience the events firsthand. These may include books, journal articles, and reviews that analyze or discuss research already published by others.

How to find primary research articles on Google Scholar is an essential skill for researchers and innovators. With its advanced search capabilities, My Library feature, and additional resources available online, it can be an invaluable asset in the quest to discover new insights into any given topic. Whether you are looking for one article or hundreds of them on a specific subject matter – Google Scholar is here to help. Use these tips as your guide when searching for primary research articles on Google Scholar so that you can get the most out of this platform’s features.

Discover the power of Cypris to quickly find primary research articles on Google Scholar and unlock insights faster for your R&D and innovation teams. Unlock time-saving solutions with our comprehensive platform that centralizes data sources into one easy-to-use interface.

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Finding Primary Research Articles in the Sciences: Home

  • Advanced Search-Databases
  • Primary vs. Secondary
  • Analyzing a Primary Research Article
  • MLA, APA, and Chicago Style

This guide goes over how to find and analyze primary research articles in the sciences (e.g. nutrition, health sciences and nursing, biology, chemistry, physics, sociology, psychology). In addition, the guide explains how to tell the difference between a primary source and a secondary source in scientific subject areas.

If you are looking for how to find primary sources in the humanities and social sciences, such as direct experience accounts in newspapers, diaries, artwork and so forth, please see   Finding Primary Sources in the Humanities and Social Sciences . 

Recommended Databases

To get started, choose one of the databases below.  Once you log in, enter your search terms to start looking for primary articles. 

Watch a Tutorial

  • Link to all Polk State College Library databases

Login Required

You must log in to use library databases and eBooks. When prompted to log in, enter your Passport credentials. 

If you have trouble, try  resetting your Passport pin , sending an email to  [email protected] ,  or calling the Help Desk at 863.292.3652 . 

You can also get help from Ask a Librarian . 

Search Tips

Keep your search terms simple.

  • No need to type full sentences into the database search box.  Limit your search to 2-3 words.
  • There is no need to type "research article" into the search box.

Use the "Advanced Search" feature of the database.

  • This will allow you to limit your search to only peer reviewed articles or a certain time frame (for example: 2013 or later).
  • Click the red tab above for tips on advanced search strategies .

Re-read the assignment guidelines often

  • Does this article satisfy the scope of the assignment (e.g. a study focused on nutrition)?
  • Does it meet the criteria for the assignment (e.g. an original research article)?

Not finding what you are looking for?

  • Ask a Librarian!

Search and Find a Primary Research Article

Are you looking for a primary research journal article if so, that is an article that reports on the results of an original research study conducted by the authors themselves. .

You can use the library's databases to search for primary research articles.  A research article will almost always be published in a peer-reviewed journal. Therefore, it is a good idea to limit your results to peer-reviewed articles. Click on the  Advanced Search-Databases tab at the top of this guide for instructions. 

The following is _not_ primary research:

Review articles are studies that arrive at conclusions after looking over other studies. Therefore, review articles are not  primary (think "first") research.  There are a variety of review articles, including:

  • Literature Reviews
  • Systematic Reviews
  • Meta-Analyses 
  • Scoping Reviews
  • Topical Reviews
  • A review/assessment of the evidence

Having trouble?  Look for a  method section within the article. If the method section includes the process used to conduct the research, how the data was gathered and analyzed and any limitations or ethical concerns to the study, then it is most likely a primary research article. For example: a research article will describe the number of people (e.g. 175 adults with celiac disease) who participated in the study and who were used to collect data.

If the method section describes how the authors found articles on a topic using search terms or databases , then it is mostly likely a secondary review article and not primary research. If there is no method section, it is not a primary research article.

Other sections in a journal: 

Your search may yield these items, too. You can skip these because they are not full write-ups of research:

  • Conference Proceedings 
  • Symposium Publications

Example of a primary research article found in the Library's Academic Search Complete database : (these authors conducted an original research study)

  • Lumia et al. (2015) Lumia, M., Takkinen, H., Luukkainen, P., Kaila, M., Lehtinen, J. S., Nwaru, B. I., Tuokkola, J., Niemelä, O., Haapala, A., Ilonen, J., Simell, O., Knip, M., Veijola, R., & Virtanen, S. M. (2015). Food consumption and risk of childhood asthma. Pediatric Allergy & Immunology, 26(8), 789–796. https://doi.org/10.1111/pai.12352

Example of a secondary article found in the Library's Academic Search Complete database : (these authors are reviewing the work of other authors)

  • Rachmah et al. (2022) Rachmah, Q., Martiana, T., Mulyono, Paskarini, I., Dwiyanti, E., Widajati, N., Ernawati, M., Ardyanto, Y. D., Tualeka, A. R., Haqi, D. N., Arini, S. Y., & Alayyannur, P. A. (2022). The effectiveness of nutrition and health intervention in workplace setting: A systematic review. Journal of Public Health Research, 11(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.4081/jphr.2021.2312

How do I know if this article is primary?

You've found an article in the library databases but how do you know if it's primary .

Look for these sections: (terminology may vary)

  • abstract  - summarizes paper in one paragraph, states the purpose of the study
  • methods  - explaining how the experiment was conducted (note: if the method section discusses how a search was conducted that is _not_ primary research) 
  • results  - detailing what happened and providing raw data sets (often as tables or graphs)
  • conclusions  - connecting the results with theories and other research
  • references  - to previous research or theories that influenced the research

Scan the article you found to see if it includes the sections above. You don't have to read the full article (yet). Look for the clues highlighted in the images below. 

primary articles

Questions? Use Ask a Librarian

  • Next: Advanced Search-Databases >>
  • Last Updated: Feb 19, 2024 11:55 AM
  • URL: https://libguides.polk.edu/primaryresearch

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A Guide to Biology: Find Primary Articles

  • Find Primary Articles
  • Find Books and Background Information
  • Literature Reviews
  • Citing Biology Sources/Citation Management

Journals List: Do We Have this Journal?

When you have a source with a bibliography, you can see if a particular article from the bibliography is available by looking the journal's name up at the link below. Then you can use the volume and date information to navigate to the article. If we don't have access to that journal, we usually can get it from another library.

  • Search the Journals List: Do We Have this Journal?

Biology Journals in Print

These print-format journals all publish primary research and review articles in the field of biology.

American Midland Naturalist Genes and Development (most current year; earlier volumes in PMC)  Nature Science Wilson Journal of Ornithology

We also subscribe in print to the following biology-related journals and magazines Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development Environmental Ethics Horticulture (current issue on main floor) Loon Minnesota Birding Minnesota Conservation Volunteer National Wildlife New Scientist (current issue on main floor)

Open Access to Biology Research

When searching PubMed, you can narrow the results to "free full text." 

For a single source of open access journal articles in the life sciences, this collection from the National Library of Medicine is hard to beat.

  • PubMed Central (digital archive of journal literature) This link opens in a new window Free full text scholarly journal archive of literature in the life and health sciences, managed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Library of Medicine.

Biology Databases

Often you will hear the phrase "primary articles" when starting biology research, meaning articles written by scientists reporting new research. These typically introduce the research with a review of previous research in the introduction, methodology, results, and discussion and/or conclusion. Journals in biology also publish "review articles" that provide a roundup of recent research on a topic in biology. If you are looking for primary articles or review articles in biology and biomedical topics, these databases will be especially useful.

  • Biological Science This link opens in a new window Covers research in all areas of biological science, including animal behavior, biomedicine, zoology, ecology, and others. Coverage is from 1982 to the present. Includes abstracts and citations, as well as access to thousands of full text titles.
  • PubMed (citations from MEDLINE and other sources) This link opens in a new window PubMed contains more than 30 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature. Click the "Find it at Gustavus" button to link to the full text or to make an interlibrary loan request. PubMed was developed and is maintained by the National Institutes of Health.
  • Web of Science (Web of Knowledge) This link opens in a new window Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Besides indexing a wide range of journals in the sciences, social sciences, and history, this resource allows you to search for articles that cite a specific author or published work. Coverage from 1997 to the present. Click on the "Web of Science" tab to limit your search to one or more specific citation databases.

Annual Reviews

These annual books publish review articles - detailed recaps of research on questions in the field. They are an excellent place to gain a sense of the various approaches to a topic and references to the literature that supports it.

Two series are shelved in the general collection under the following call numbers:

  • ADVANCES IN MARINE BIOLOGY v. 1, 1963- (QH 91 .A1 A22)
  • ADVANCES IN VIRUS RESEARCH v. 1, 1953- (QR 360 .A3)

Also of interest is WILDLIFE MONOGRAPHS. Current volumes are available online ; volumes from 1956 - 2009 are sheved at QL 1 .W54.

The Annual Reviews series online also includes biology-related review articles.

  • Annual Review of Biochemistry
  • Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology
  • Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics
  • Annual Review of Entomology
  • Annual Review of Genetics
  • Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics
  • Annual Review of Immunology
  • Annual Review of Neuroscience

Other Science Databases

  • AGRICOLA This link opens in a new window Citations and abstracts for agricultural publications from the 15th century to the present, including articles from over 600 periodicals, USDA and state experiment station and extension publications, and selected books. Subjects include animal and veterinary sciences, entomology, plant sciences, food and human nutrition, and earth and environmental sciences. Many records are linked to full-text documents online. A resource of the National Agricultural Library.
  • Google Scholar This link opens in a new window This search engine points toward scholarly research rather than all Web-based sources. It is stronger in the sciences than in the humanities, with social sciences somewhere in between. One interesting feature of Google Scholar is that in includes a link to sources that cite a particular item. Not all of the articles in Google Scholar are free; the library can obtain many of them for you through Interlibrary loan.

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How Do I Get the Actual Articles?

If there isn't a PDF available, look for a "find it" link. That will check to see if it's available through another of our databases. If no full text is available, it will give you an opportunity to request the article from another library. You will have to log in using your Gustavus username and password. It usually takes a day or two. Look for an email that will explain how to download the PDF. 

If you're using Google Scholar, look for either a "find it @ Gustavus" link to the right or a "more" link under the reference you're interested in.  

  • << Previous: Start
  • Next: Find Books and Background Information >>
  • Last Updated: Feb 15, 2024 3:49 PM
  • URL: https://libguides.gustavus.edu/BIO

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Research articles

primary research article finder

The effect of arterial spin labeling MR angiography (ASL-MRA) in visualizing the branches of external carotid artery

  • Akihiro Nishie

primary research article finder

High-dose exposure to butylparaben impairs thyroid ultrastructure and function in rats

  • Qi-Lan Jiang

primary research article finder

Building integrated diffusers’ area ratio optimization

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primary research article finder

The unnecessary workups and admissions of adolescents and young adults with spontaneous pneumomediastinum

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primary research article finder

Using machine learning to predict five-year transplant-free survival among infants with hypoplastic left heart syndrome

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primary research article finder

The diagnostic performance evaluation of Panbio and STANDARD Q coronavirus disease 2019 antigen tests against real-time polymerase chain reaction in southern Ethiopia

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primary research article finder

Apigenin supplementation substantially improves rooster sperm freezability and post-thaw function

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primary research article finder

Optimized reamer geometry for controlled reaming of the proximal femur

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Normative body mass-adjusted reference ranges of magnetic resonance imaging signs commonly used in diagnosing idiopathic intracranial hypertension in a healthy standard population

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Mosaic quadrivalent influenza vaccine single nanoparticle characterization

  • Rong Sylvie Yang
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Alcohol consumption as a socially contagious phenomenon in the Framingham Heart Study social network

  • Maarten W. J. van den Ende
  • Han L. J. van der Maas
  • Mike H. Lees

primary research article finder

Transdiagnostic clustering and network analysis for questionnaire-based symptom profiling and drug recommendation in the UK Biobank and a Korean cohort

  • Dongbin Lee
  • Woong-yang Park

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Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging assessment of residual tumor angiogenesis after insufficient microwave ablation and donafenib adjuvant therapy

  • Guiling Feng

primary research article finder

Ocular microvascular alteration in patients with myocardial infarction—a new OCTA study

primary research article finder

Circulating miR-let7a levels predict future diagnosis of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension

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Detecting tail biters by monitoring pig screams in weaning pigs

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primary research article finder

A novel interpretable deep transfer learning combining diverse learnable parameters for improved T2D prediction based on single-cell gene regulatory networks

  • Sumaya Alghamdi
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primary research article finder

Characterization of carbon fluxes, stock and nutrients in the sacred forest groves and invasive vegetation stands within the human dominated landscapes of a tropical semi-arid region

  • R. V. Akil Prasath
  • R. Mohanraj
  • A. Rajasekaran

primary research article finder

Utilizing the sublingual form of squalene in COVID-19 patients: a randomized clinical trial

  • Mahmoud Ebrahimi
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primary research article finder

A comparative study of advanced evolutionary algorithms for optimizing microgrid performance under dynamic pricing conditions

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Quick links

  • Explore articles by subject
  • Guide to authors
  • Editorial policies

primary research article finder

NUR 3165 - Nursing Research

  • Nursing Databases
  • Research Article Basics
  • - Practice 1

Finding Primary Research Articles - Overview

  • - Practice 2
  • Quantitative/Qualitative/Mixed Methods
  • - Practice 3
  • How to Find Full Text Articles
  • Terminology

There are several ways to locate primary research articles as you will see in the following practice exercises (see next page). Here are some tips to consider while looking for original research studies:

Tip #1 - Incorporate subject headings into your search

Subject headings are terms that are part of a controlled vocabulary used to describe the contents tagged inside the article record. These terms can be found in each of the CINAHL Detailed Records under Major Subjects and Minor Subjects. So, if you see the ultimate article, look to see what terms it is tagged with and add them to the search in the appropriate line if relevant. For example,(MH "Emergency Service") is the medical subject heading used for Emergency Department!

To search for possible subject headings, try putting a keyword in a new search and check the Suggest Subject Terms  box. The asterisk covers any number of characters (i.e., nurs* yields nurse, nurses, and nurses at the same time). Quotation marks around two or more terms searches them as a phrase.

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Try it out! Place the term  Hospital Acquired Infection  in CINAHL, check the Suggest Subject Terms box and click search to see the subject heading for this term!

primary research article finder

Tip #2 - Check the research article box

Databases like CINAHL allow you to select Research Article to retrieve research articles in your search.

Tip #3 - Sections of the Research Article to look for

When reading an article, make sure to look inside the abstract (and the full text) and scan for sections contained in many primary research studies such as  Introduction, Participants, Methods, Results and Discussion! Look at those sections to see if the researchers are working directly with the participants and conducting original research.

See the next section for additional tips!

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Peer Review and Primary Literature: An Introduction: Is it Primary Research? How Do I Know?

  • Scholarly Journal vs. Magazine
  • Peer Review: What is it?
  • Finding Peer-Reviewed Articles
  • Primary Journal Literature
  • Is it Primary Research? How Do I Know?

Components of a Primary Research Study

As indicated on a previous page, Peer-Reviewed Journals also include non -primary content. Simply limiting your search results in a database to "peer-reviewed" will not retrieve a list of only primary research studies.

Learn to recognize the parts of a primary research study. Terminology will vary slightly from discipline to discipline and from journal to journal.  However, there are common components to most research studies.

When you run a search, find a promising article in your results list and then look at the record for that item (usually by clicking on the title). The full database record for an item usually includes an abstract or summary--sometimes prepared by the journal or database, but often written by the author(s) themselves. This will usually give a clear indication of whether the article is a primary study.  For example, here is a full database record from a search for family violence and support in SocINDEX with Full Text :

Although the abstract often tells the story, you will need to read the article to know for sure. Besides scanning the Abstract or Summary, look for the following components: (I am only capturing small article segments for illustration.)

Look for the words METHOD or METHODOLOGY . The authors should explain how they conducted their research.

NOTE: Different Journals and Disciplines will use different terms to mean similar things. If instead of " Method " or " Methodology " you see a heading that says " Research Design " or " Data Collection ," you have a similar indicator that the scholar-authors have done original research.

  

Look for the section called RESULTS . This details what the author(s) found out after conducting their research.

Charts , Tables , Graphs , Maps and other displays help to summarize and present the findings of the research.

A Discussion indicates the significance of findings, acknowledges limitations of the research study, and suggests further research.

References , a Bibliography or List of Works Cited indicates a literature review and shows other studies and works that were consulted. USE THIS PART OF THE STUDY! If you find one or two good recent studies, you can identify some important earlier studies simply by going through the bibliographies of those articles.

A FINAL NOTE:  If you are ever unclear about whether a particular article is appropriate to use in your paper, it is best to show that article to your professor and discuss it with them.  The professor is the final judge since they will be assigning your grade.

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Primary Research Article

Review article.

Identifying and creating an APA style citation for your bibliography: 

  • Author initials are separated by a period
  • Multiple authors are separated by commas and an ampersand (&)  
  • Title format rules change depending on what is referenced
  • Double check them for accuracy 

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Identifying and creating an APA style in-text citation: 

  • eg. (Smith, 2022) or (Smith & Stevens, 2022) 

The structure of this changes depending on whether a direct quote or parenthetical used:

Direct Quote: the citation must follow the quote directly and contain a page number after the date

eg. (Smith, 2022, p.21)

Parenthetical: the page number is not needed

For more information, take a look at Harvard Library's Citation Styles guide !

A primary research article typically contains the following section headings:

"Methods"/"Materials and Methods"/"Experimental Methods"(different journals title this section in different ways)

"Results"

"Discussion"

If you skim the article, you should find additional evidence that an experiment was conducted by the authors themselves.

Primary research articles provide a background on their subject by summarizing previously conducted research, this typically occurs only in the Introduction section of the article.

Review articles do not report new experiments. Rather, they attempt to provide a thorough review of a specific subject by assessing either all or the best available scholarly literature on that topic.

Ways to identify a review article: 

  • Author(s) summarize and analyze previously published research 
  • May focus on a specific research question, comparing and contrasting previously published research 
  • Overview all of the research on a particular topic 
  • Does not contain "methods" or "results" type sections
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Where to find peer reviewed articles for research

This is our ultimate guide to helping you get familiar with your research field and find peer reviewed articles in the Web of Science™. It forms part of our Research Smarter series. 

Finding relevant research and journal articles in your field is critical to a successful research project. Unfortunately, it can be one of the hardest, most time-consuming challenges for academics.

This blog outlines how you can leverage the Web of Science citation network to complete an in-depth, comprehensive search for literature. We share insights about how you can find a research paper and quickly assess its impact. We also explain how to create alerts to keep track of new papers in your field – whether you’re new to the topic or about to embark on a literature review.

  • Choosing research databases for your search
  • Where to find peer reviewed articles? Master the keyword search
  • Filter your results and analyze for trends
  • Explore the citation network
  • Save your searches and set up alerts for new journal articles

1. Choosing research databases for your search

The myriad search engines, research databases and data repositories all differ in reliability, relevancy and organization of data. This can make it tricky to navigate and assess what’s best for your research at hand.

The Web of Science stands out the most powerful and trusted citation database. It helps you connect ideas and advance scientific research across all fields and disciplines. This is made possible with best-in-class publication and citation data for confident discovery and assessment of journal articles. The Web of Science is also publisher-neutral, carefully-curated by a team of expert editors and consists of 19 different research databases.

The Web of Science Core Collection™ is the single most authoritative source for how to find research articles, discover top authors , and relevant journals . It only includes journals that have met rigorous quality and impact criteria, and it captures billions of cited references from globally significant journals, books and proceedings ( check out its coverage ). Researchers and organizations use this research database regularly to track ideas across disciplines and time.

Explore the Web of Science Core Collection

We recommend spending time exploring the Core Collection specifically because its advanced citation network features are unparalleled. If you are looking to do an exhaustive search of a specific field, you might want to switch to one of the field-specific databases like MEDLINE and INSPEC. You can also select “All databases” from the drop-down box on the main search page. This will cover all research databases your institution subscribes to. IF you are still unsure about where to find scholarly journal articles, you can learn more in our Quick Reference Guide, here, or try it out today.

“We recommend spending time exploring the Core Collection specifically because its advanced citation network features are unparalleled.”

Image: how to find research articles in the Web of Science database

2. Where to find peer reviewed articles? Master the keyword search

A great deal of care and consideration is needed to find peer review articles for research. It starts with your keyword search.

Your chosen keywords or search phrases cannot be too inclusive or limiting. They also require constant iteration as you become more familiar with your research field. Watch this video on search tips to learn more:

primary research article finder

It’s worth noting that a repeated keyword search in the same Web of Science database will retrieve almost identical results every time, save for newly-indexed research. Not all research databases do this. If you are conducting a literature review and require a reproducible keyword search, it is best to steer clear of certain databases. For example, a research database that lacks overall transparency or frequently changes its search algorithm may be detrimental to your research.

3. Filter your search results and analyze trends

Group, rank and analyze the research articles in your search results to optimize the relevancy and efficiency of your efforts. In the Web of Science, researchers can cut through the data in a number of creative ways. This will help you when you’re stuck wondering where to find peer reviewed articles, journals and authors. The filter and refine tools , as well as the Analyze Results feature, are all at your disposal for this.

“Group, rank and analyze the research papers in your search results to optimize the relevancy and efficiency of your efforts.”

Where can I find scholarly journal articles? Try the Highly Cited and Hot Papers in Field option

Filter and Refine tools in the Web of Science

You can opt for basic filter and refine tools in the Web of Science. These include subject category, publication date and open access within your search results. You can also filter by highly-cited research and hot research papers. A hot paper is a journal article that has accumulated rapid and significant numbers of citations over a short period of time.

The Analyze Results tool does much of this and more. It provides an interactive visualization of your results by the most prolific author, institution and funding agency, for example. This, combined, will help you understand trends across your field.

4. Explore the citation network

Keyword searches are essentially an a priori view of the literature. Citation-based searching, on the other hand, leads to “systematic serendipity”. This term was used by Eugene Garfield, the founder of Web of Science. New scientific developments are linked to the global sphere of human knowledge through the citation network. The constantly evolving connections link ideas and lead to systematic serendipity, allowing for all sorts of surprising discoveries.

Exploring the citation network helps you to:

  • Identify a seminal research paper in any field. Pay attention to the number of times a journal article is cited to achieve this.
  • Track the advancement of research as it progresses over time by analyzing the research papers that cite the original source. This will also help you catch retractions and corrections to research.
  • Track the evolution of a research paper backward in time by tracking the work that a particular journal article cites.
  • View related references. A research paper may share citations with another piece of work (calculated from bibliographic coupling). That means it’s likely discussing a similar topic.

primary research article finder

Visualizing the history discoveries in the citation network

The Web of Science Core Collection indexes every piece of content cover-to-cover. This creates a complete and certain view of more than 115 years of the highest-quality journal articles. The depth of coverage enables you to uncover the historical trail of a research paper in your field. By doing so, it helps you visualize how discoveries unfold through time. You can also learn where they might branch off into new areas of research.  Achieve this in your search by ordering your result set by date of publication.

As PhD student Rachel Ragnhild Carlson (Stanford University) recently wrote in a column for Nature: [1]

”As a PhD student, I’ve learnt to rely not just on my Web of Science research but on numerous conversations with seasoned experts. And I make sure that my reading includes literature from previous decades, which often doesn’t rise to the top of a web search. This practice is reinforced by mentors in my lab, who often find research gems by filtering explicitly for studies greater than ten years old.”

5. Save your search and set up alerts for new journal articles

Save time and keep abreast of new journal articles in your field by saving your searches and setting up email alerts . This means you can return to your search at any time. You can also stay up-to-date about a new research paper included in your search result. This will help you find an article more easily in the future. Head over to Web of Science to try it out today.

“Everyone should set up email alerts with keywords for PubMed, Web of Science, etc. Those keyword lists will evolve and be fine-tuned over time. However, it really helps to get an idea of recent publications.” Thorbjörn Sievert , PhD student, University of Jyväskylä

[1] Ragnhild Carlson, R. 2020 ‘How Trump’s embattled environment agency prepared me for a PhD’, Nature 579, 458

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Methodology

  • Primary Research | Definition, Types, & Examples

Primary Research | Definition, Types, & Examples

Published on January 14, 2023 by Tegan George . Revised on January 12, 2024.

Primary research is a research method that relies on direct data collection , rather than relying on data that’s already been collected by someone else. In other words, primary research is any type of research that you undertake yourself, firsthand, while using data that has already been collected is called secondary research .

Primary research is often used in qualitative research , particularly in survey methodology, questionnaires, focus groups, and various types of interviews . While quantitative primary research does exist, it’s not as common.

Table of contents

When to use primary research, types of primary research, examples of primary research, advantages and disadvantages of primary research, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions.

Primary research is any research that you conduct yourself. It can be as simple as a 2-question survey, or as in-depth as a years-long longitudinal study . The only key is that data must be collected firsthand by you.

Primary research is often used to supplement or strengthen existing secondary research. It is usually exploratory in nature, concerned with examining a research question where no preexisting knowledge exists. It is also sometimes called original research for this reason.

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Primary research can take many forms, but the most common types are:

  • Surveys and questionnaires
  • Observational studies
  • Interviews and focus groups

Surveys and questionnaires collect information about a group of people by asking them questions and analyzing the results. They are a solid choice if your research topic seeks to investigate something about the characteristics, preferences, opinions, or beliefs of a group of people.

Surveys and questionnaires can take place online, in person, or through the mail. It is best to have a combination of open-ended and closed-ended questions, and how the questions are phrased matters. Be sure to avoid leading questions, and ask any related questions in groups, starting with the most basic ones first.

Observational studies are an easy and popular way to answer a research question based purely on what you, the researcher, observes. If there are practical or ethical concerns that prevent you from conducting a traditional experiment , observational studies are often a good stopgap.

There are three types of observational studies: cross-sectional studies , cohort studies, and case-control studies. If you decide to conduct observational research, you can choose the one that’s best for you. All three are quite straightforward and easy to design—just beware of confounding variables and observer bias creeping into your analysis.

Similarly to surveys and questionnaires, interviews and focus groups also rely on asking questions to collect information about a group of people. However, how this is done is slightly different. Instead of sending your questions out into the world, interviews and focus groups involve two or more people—one of whom is you, the interviewer, who asks the questions.

There are 3 main types of interviews:

  • Structured interviews ask predetermined questions in a predetermined order.
  • Unstructured interviews are more flexible and free-flowing, proceeding based on the interviewee’s previous answers.
  • Semi-structured interviews fall in between, asking a mix of predetermined questions and off-the-cuff questions.

While interviews are a rich source of information, they can also be deceptively challenging to do well. Be careful of interviewer bias creeping into your process. This is best mitigated by avoiding double-barreled questions and paying close attention to your tone and delivery while asking questions.

Alternatively, a focus group is a group interview, led by a moderator. Focus groups can provide more nuanced interactions than individual interviews, but their small sample size means that external validity is low.

Primary Research and Secondary Research

Primary research can often be quite simple to pursue yourself. Here are a few examples of different research methods you can use to explore different topics.

Primary research is a great choice for many research projects, but it has distinct advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of primary research

Advantages include:

  • The ability to conduct really tailored, thorough research, down to the “nitty-gritty” of your topic . You decide what you want to study or observe and how to go about doing that.
  • You maintain control over the quality of the data collected, and can ensure firsthand that it is objective, reliable , and valid .
  • The ensuing results are yours, for you to disseminate as you see fit. You maintain proprietary control over what you find out, allowing you to share your findings with like-minded individuals or those conducting related research that interests you for replication or discussion purposes.

Disadvantages of primary research

Disadvantages include:

  • In order to be done well, primary research can be very expensive and time consuming. If you are constrained in terms of time or funding, it can be very difficult to conduct your own high-quality primary research.
  • Primary research is often insufficient as a standalone research method, requiring secondary research to bolster it.
  • Primary research can be prone to various types of research bias . Bias can manifest on the part of the researcher as observer bias , Pygmalion effect , or demand characteristics . It can occur on the part of participants as a Hawthorne effect or social desirability bias .

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

  • Chi square goodness of fit test
  • Degrees of freedom
  • Null hypothesis
  • Discourse analysis
  • Control groups
  • Mixed methods research
  • Non-probability sampling
  • Quantitative research
  • Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Research bias

  • Rosenthal effect
  • Implicit bias
  • Cognitive bias
  • Selection bias
  • Negativity bias
  • Status quo bias

The 3 main types of primary research are:

Exploratory research aims to explore the main aspects of an under-researched problem, while explanatory research aims to explain the causes and consequences of a well-defined problem.

There are several methods you can use to decrease the impact of confounding variables on your research: restriction, matching, statistical control and randomization.

In restriction , you restrict your sample by only including certain subjects that have the same values of potential confounding variables.

In matching , you match each of the subjects in your treatment group with a counterpart in the comparison group. The matched subjects have the same values on any potential confounding variables, and only differ in the independent variable .

In statistical control , you include potential confounders as variables in your regression .

In randomization , you randomly assign the treatment (or independent variable) in your study to a sufficiently large number of subjects, which allows you to control for all potential confounding variables.

A questionnaire is a data collection tool or instrument, while a survey is an overarching research method that involves collecting and analyzing data from people using questionnaires.

When conducting research, collecting original data has significant advantages:

  • You can tailor data collection to your specific research aims (e.g. understanding the needs of your consumers or user testing your website)
  • You can control and standardize the process for high reliability and validity (e.g. choosing appropriate measurements and sampling methods )

However, there are also some drawbacks: data collection can be time-consuming, labor-intensive and expensive. In some cases, it’s more efficient to use secondary data that has already been collected by someone else, but the data might be less reliable.

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Identifying Primary and Secondary Research Articles

  • Primary and Secondary

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Primary Research Articles

Primary research articles report on a single study. In the health sciences, primary research articles generally describe the following aspects of the study:

  • The study's hypothesis or research question
  • Some articles will include information on how participants were recruited or identified, as well as additional information about participants' sex, age, or race/ethnicity
  • A "methods" or "methodology" section that describes how the study was performed and what the researchers did
  • Results and conclusion section

Secondary Research Articles

Review articles are the most common type of secondary research article in the health sciences. A review article is a summary of previously published research on a topic. Authors who are writing a review article will search databases for previously completed research and summarize or synthesize those articles,  as opposed to recruiting participants and performing a new research study.

Specific types of review articles include:

  • Systematic Reviews
  • Meta-Analysis
  • Narrative Reviews
  • Integrative Reviews
  • Literature Reviews

Review articles often report on the following:

  • The hypothesis, research question, or review topic
  • Databases searched-- authors should clearly describe where and how they searched for the research included in their reviews
  • Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis should provide detailed information on the databases searched and the search strategy the authors used.Selection criteria-- the researchers should describe how they decided which articles to include
  • A critical appraisal or evaluation of the quality of the articles included (most frequently included in systematic reviews and meta-analysis)
  • Discussion, results, and conclusions

Determining Primary versus Secondary Using the Database Abstract

Information found in PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and other databases can help you determine whether the article you're looking at is primary or secondary.

Primary research article abstract

  • Note that in the "Objectives" field, the authors describe their single, individual study.
  • In the materials and methods section, they describe the number of patients included in the study and how those patients were divided into groups.
  • These are all clues that help us determine this abstract is describing is a single, primary research article, as opposed to a literature review.
  • Primary Article Abstract

primary research article finder

Secondary research/review article abstract

  • Note that the words "systematic review" and "meta-analysis" appear in the title of the article
  • The objectives field also includes the term "meta-analysis" (a common type of literature review in the health sciences)
  • The "Data Source" section includes a list of databases searched
  • The "Study Selection" section describes the selection criteria
  • These are all clues that help us determine that this abstract is describing a review article, as opposed to a single, primary research article.
  • Secondary Research Article

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  • Primary vs. Secondary Worksheet

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Finding Primary Articles in PubMed: Home

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Finding Primary Articles in PubMed

From the library homepage -- library.surry.edu (opens in new window) -- click on Find Articles .

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Click on the letter P or scroll through the list until you see PubMed . To limit to full text articles, click on the PubMed Central link in the PubMed description.

Click on PubMed

Type in a search for your topic. Press Enter or click the Search button.

primary research article finder

You will retrieve a list of articles. To limit to primary research articles, click on Clinical Trial or click More to select other type of trials and original research studies.

Pub Med Clincial Trials limiter

You may also limit your article results to Free full text either on the left or you can scan below the article results for Free Article or Free PMC Article .

PubMed Free Article limiter

If the article is available for free, you will see a link to access the article in the upper right of the screen. If you can't find the article text, email Alan Unsworth, Research Librarian , to see if the article may be obtained .

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NUR 6020 (Advanced Nursing Research): Finding Primary Research

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  • Finding Primary Research
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Primary Sources

What is a primary source for nursing research?

•  A first-hand report of an original study, experiment, or event

•  Written by the person(s) who conducted the study/experiment or witnessed the event

•  Can be quantitative or qualitative in nature

When a nurse researcher interviews patients about their health behaviors, a pharmaceutical company conducts clinical trials on a new drug, or a hospital surveys its nursing staff, they are creating primary information.

An original research article should consist of the following headings: Structured abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion (IMRAD) and may be Randomized Control Trial (RCT), Controlled Clinical Trial (CCT), Experiment, Survey, and Case-control or Cohort study.

Sample article:

          Gunasekeera,V., Mendall, M. , Chan, D., Kumar, D., & Mendall., M. A. (2016). Treatment of Crohn's disease with an IgG4-guided exclusion diet: A randomized control trial. Digestive Diseases & Sciences , 61(4), 1148-1157. doi:101007/s10620-0153987-z

Primary Research in CINAHL

In CINAHL like other EBSCO databases you can filter your results by scrolling down to the Limit Your Results section of the Advanced Search screen. There is no PRIMARY article filter but within CINAHL there are multiple filter you can use:

RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS CHECKBOX:  This will filter your results to randomized controlled trials research articles only.

RESEARCH ARTICLE CHECKBOX: This will filter your results for research articles, both quantitative and qualitative.  However, BOTH primary AND secondary research articles will be retrieved, so you will need to examine your results carefully.

PUBLICATION TYPE : Try Clinical Trial,   Randomized Controlled Trial, or another publication type appropriate for the studies you need.

CLINICAL QUERIES : Choose the appropriate focus area for your question ( Therapy , Prognosis , Review , Qualitative , or Causation ) and desired scope ( High Sensitivity =more articles/some less relevant, High Specificity =fewer articles/higher relevance, or Best Balance ).  Again, BOTH primary AND secondary research articles will be retrieved, so you will need to examine your results carefully.

Try using each of these options separately.  These will work with keyword searches as well as subject searches.  If you are looking for a very specific type of study, try including the study type as a keyword instead of using limiters.

scroll down to see limiters option and choose some of the recommended filters.

  • CINAHL Complete (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window

Primary Research in Medline (EBSCO)

In Medline (EBSCO) there are a couple of recommended filters from the Limit Your Results section :

PUBLICATION TYPE : Try Clinical Trial , Controlled Clinical Trial , Randomized Controlled Trial, or another publication type appropriate for the studies you need.

CLINICAL QUERIES : Choose the appropriate focus area for your question ( Therapy , Diagnosis , Prognosis , Reviews , Clinical Prediction Guides , Qualitative , Causation, Costs or Economics ) and desired scope (High Sensitivity=more articles/some less relevant, High Specificity =fewer articles/higher relevance, or Best Balance).  Again, BOTH primary AND secondary research articles will be retrieved, so you will need to examine your results carefully.

Try using these options separately.  These will work with keyword searches as well as subject searches.  If you are looking for a very specific type of study, try including the study type as a keyword instead of using limiters.

Medline filters scroll down in the Advanced Search Box to see the publication type option and clinical queries option.

  • MEDLINE (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window

Primary vs Secondary Research

primary research article finder

Primary Research in PubMed

In PubMed  filter your results by using the options on the left sidebar.  Click on one or more filters to include those attributes. There is no filter for PRIMARY articles but you can filter your results by article type . 

ARTICLE TYPE : Try  Clinical Trial ,  Randomized Controlled Trial , or another type of study appropriate for you need. If you do not see the type of article you need click on the   Customize  link to see more options and add them as a category.

Article Type is the firs filter on the left sidebar. Recommend to filter by clinical trial or randomized controlled tiral or another type of study. If you do not see those options click on More and add them to the list.

  • PubMed @ HPU This link opens in a new window

Primary Research in The Cochrane Library

Included in The Cochrane Library is T he Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials .  This database contains citations and abstracts for controlled trials.

After running your search, click on the "TRIALS " button in the left sidebar.  This will display any controlled trials retrieved from the database.

If you identify any articles you would like to retrieve, you will probably need to take the journal information down and look for the issue (if we have a subscription) through our Periodicals List  or check in Google Scholar @ HPU to see if we have access . 

on the left side click on TRIAL.

  • Cochrane Library This link opens in a new window

Primary Research in the TRIP Database

The TRIP Database is a UK-based meta-search engine for clinical evidence.  After typing in your search, you may apply filters from the right sidebar. TRIP does have a filter for PRIMARY RESEARCH and   KEY PRIMARY RESEARCH and CONTROL TRIALS. 

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  • URL: https://hpu.libguides.com/nur6020
  • Systematic review
  • Open access
  • Published: 19 February 2024

‘It depends’: what 86 systematic reviews tell us about what strategies to use to support the use of research in clinical practice

  • Annette Boaz   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0557-1294 1 ,
  • Juan Baeza 2 ,
  • Alec Fraser   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1121-1551 2 &
  • Erik Persson 3  

Implementation Science volume  19 , Article number:  15 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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The gap between research findings and clinical practice is well documented and a range of strategies have been developed to support the implementation of research into clinical practice. The objective of this study was to update and extend two previous reviews of systematic reviews of strategies designed to implement research evidence into clinical practice.

We developed a comprehensive systematic literature search strategy based on the terms used in the previous reviews to identify studies that looked explicitly at interventions designed to turn research evidence into practice. The search was performed in June 2022 in four electronic databases: Medline, Embase, Cochrane and Epistemonikos. We searched from January 2010 up to June 2022 and applied no language restrictions. Two independent reviewers appraised the quality of included studies using a quality assessment checklist. To reduce the risk of bias, papers were excluded following discussion between all members of the team. Data were synthesised using descriptive and narrative techniques to identify themes and patterns linked to intervention strategies, targeted behaviours, study settings and study outcomes.

We identified 32 reviews conducted between 2010 and 2022. The reviews are mainly of multi-faceted interventions ( n  = 20) although there are reviews focusing on single strategies (ICT, educational, reminders, local opinion leaders, audit and feedback, social media and toolkits). The majority of reviews report strategies achieving small impacts (normally on processes of care). There is much less evidence that these strategies have shifted patient outcomes. Furthermore, a lot of nuance lies behind these headline findings, and this is increasingly commented upon in the reviews themselves.

Combined with the two previous reviews, 86 systematic reviews of strategies to increase the implementation of research into clinical practice have been identified. We need to shift the emphasis away from isolating individual and multi-faceted interventions to better understanding and building more situated, relational and organisational capability to support the use of research in clinical practice. This will involve drawing on a wider range of research perspectives (including social science) in primary studies and diversifying the types of synthesis undertaken to include approaches such as realist synthesis which facilitate exploration of the context in which strategies are employed.

Peer Review reports

Contribution to the literature

Considerable time and money is invested in implementing and evaluating strategies to increase the implementation of research into clinical practice.

The growing body of evidence is not providing the anticipated clear lessons to support improved implementation.

Instead what is needed is better understanding and building more situated, relational and organisational capability to support the use of research in clinical practice.

This would involve a more central role in implementation science for a wider range of perspectives, especially from the social, economic, political and behavioural sciences and for greater use of different types of synthesis, such as realist synthesis.

Introduction

The gap between research findings and clinical practice is well documented and a range of interventions has been developed to increase the implementation of research into clinical practice [ 1 , 2 ]. In recent years researchers have worked to improve the consistency in the ways in which these interventions (often called strategies) are described to support their evaluation. One notable development has been the emergence of Implementation Science as a field focusing explicitly on “the scientific study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of research findings and other evidence-based practices into routine practice” ([ 3 ] p. 1). The work of implementation science focuses on closing, or at least narrowing, the gap between research and practice. One contribution has been to map existing interventions, identifying 73 discreet strategies to support research implementation [ 4 ] which have been grouped into 9 clusters [ 5 ]. The authors note that they have not considered the evidence of effectiveness of the individual strategies and that a next step is to understand better which strategies perform best in which combinations and for what purposes [ 4 ]. Other authors have noted that there is also scope to learn more from other related fields of study such as policy implementation [ 6 ] and to draw on methods designed to support the evaluation of complex interventions [ 7 ].

The increase in activity designed to support the implementation of research into practice and improvements in reporting provided the impetus for an update of a review of systematic reviews of the effectiveness of interventions designed to support the use of research in clinical practice [ 8 ] which was itself an update of the review conducted by Grimshaw and colleagues in 2001. The 2001 review [ 9 ] identified 41 reviews considering a range of strategies including educational interventions, audit and feedback, computerised decision support to financial incentives and combined interventions. The authors concluded that all the interventions had the potential to promote the uptake of evidence in practice, although no one intervention seemed to be more effective than the others in all settings. They concluded that combined interventions were more likely to be effective than single interventions. The 2011 review identified a further 13 systematic reviews containing 313 discrete primary studies. Consistent with the previous review, four main strategy types were identified: audit and feedback; computerised decision support; opinion leaders; and multi-faceted interventions (MFIs). Nine of the reviews reported on MFIs. The review highlighted the small effects of single interventions such as audit and feedback, computerised decision support and opinion leaders. MFIs claimed an improvement in effectiveness over single interventions, although effect sizes remained small to moderate and this improvement in effectiveness relating to MFIs has been questioned in a subsequent review [ 10 ]. In updating the review, we anticipated a larger pool of reviews and an opportunity to consolidate learning from more recent systematic reviews of interventions.

This review updates and extends our previous review of systematic reviews of interventions designed to implement research evidence into clinical practice. To identify potentially relevant peer-reviewed research papers, we developed a comprehensive systematic literature search strategy based on the terms used in the Grimshaw et al. [ 9 ] and Boaz, Baeza and Fraser [ 8 ] overview articles. To ensure optimal retrieval, our search strategy was refined with support from an expert university librarian, considering the ongoing improvements in the development of search filters for systematic reviews since our first review [ 11 ]. We also wanted to include technology-related terms (e.g. apps, algorithms, machine learning, artificial intelligence) to find studies that explored interventions based on the use of technological innovations as mechanistic tools for increasing the use of evidence into practice (see Additional file 1 : Appendix A for full search strategy).

The search was performed in June 2022 in the following electronic databases: Medline, Embase, Cochrane and Epistemonikos. We searched for articles published since the 2011 review. We searched from January 2010 up to June 2022 and applied no language restrictions. Reference lists of relevant papers were also examined.

We uploaded the results using EPPI-Reviewer, a web-based tool that facilitated semi-automation of the screening process and removal of duplicate studies. We made particular use of a priority screening function to reduce screening workload and avoid ‘data deluge’ [ 12 ]. Through machine learning, one reviewer screened a smaller number of records ( n  = 1200) to train the software to predict whether a given record was more likely to be relevant or irrelevant, thus pulling the relevant studies towards the beginning of the screening process. This automation did not replace manual work but helped the reviewer to identify eligible studies more quickly. During the selection process, we included studies that looked explicitly at interventions designed to turn research evidence into practice. Studies were included if they met the following pre-determined inclusion criteria:

The study was a systematic review

Search terms were included

Focused on the implementation of research evidence into practice

The methodological quality of the included studies was assessed as part of the review

Study populations included healthcare providers and patients. The EPOC taxonomy [ 13 ] was used to categorise the strategies. The EPOC taxonomy has four domains: delivery arrangements, financial arrangements, governance arrangements and implementation strategies. The implementation strategies domain includes 20 strategies targeted at healthcare workers. Numerous EPOC strategies were assessed in the review including educational strategies, local opinion leaders, reminders, ICT-focused approaches and audit and feedback. Some strategies that did not fit easily within the EPOC categories were also included. These were social media strategies and toolkits, and multi-faceted interventions (MFIs) (see Table  2 ). Some systematic reviews included comparisons of different interventions while other reviews compared one type of intervention against a control group. Outcomes related to improvements in health care processes or patient well-being. Numerous individual study types (RCT, CCT, BA, ITS) were included within the systematic reviews.

We excluded papers that:

Focused on changing patient rather than provider behaviour

Had no demonstrable outcomes

Made unclear or no reference to research evidence

The last of these criteria was sometimes difficult to judge, and there was considerable discussion amongst the research team as to whether the link between research evidence and practice was sufficiently explicit in the interventions analysed. As we discussed in the previous review [ 8 ] in the field of healthcare, the principle of evidence-based practice is widely acknowledged and tools to change behaviour such as guidelines are often seen to be an implicit codification of evidence, despite the fact that this is not always the case.

Reviewers employed a two-stage process to select papers for inclusion. First, all titles and abstracts were screened by one reviewer to determine whether the study met the inclusion criteria. Two papers [ 14 , 15 ] were identified that fell just before the 2010 cut-off. As they were not identified in the searches for the first review [ 8 ] they were included and progressed to assessment. Each paper was rated as include, exclude or maybe. The full texts of 111 relevant papers were assessed independently by at least two authors. To reduce the risk of bias, papers were excluded following discussion between all members of the team. 32 papers met the inclusion criteria and proceeded to data extraction. The study selection procedure is documented in a PRISMA literature flow diagram (see Fig.  1 ). We were able to include French, Spanish and Portuguese papers in the selection reflecting the language skills in the study team, but none of the papers identified met the inclusion criteria. Other non- English language papers were excluded.

figure 1

PRISMA flow diagram. Source: authors

One reviewer extracted data on strategy type, number of included studies, local, target population, effectiveness and scope of impact from the included studies. Two reviewers then independently read each paper and noted key findings and broad themes of interest which were then discussed amongst the wider authorial team. Two independent reviewers appraised the quality of included studies using a Quality Assessment Checklist based on Oxman and Guyatt [ 16 ] and Francke et al. [ 17 ]. Each study was rated a quality score ranging from 1 (extensive flaws) to 7 (minimal flaws) (see Additional file 2 : Appendix B). All disagreements were resolved through discussion. Studies were not excluded in this updated overview based on methodological quality as we aimed to reflect the full extent of current research into this topic.

The extracted data were synthesised using descriptive and narrative techniques to identify themes and patterns in the data linked to intervention strategies, targeted behaviours, study settings and study outcomes.

Thirty-two studies were included in the systematic review. Table 1. provides a detailed overview of the included systematic reviews comprising reference, strategy type, quality score, number of included studies, local, target population, effectiveness and scope of impact (see Table  1. at the end of the manuscript). Overall, the quality of the studies was high. Twenty-three studies scored 7, six studies scored 6, one study scored 5, one study scored 4 and one study scored 3. The primary focus of the review was on reviews of effectiveness studies, but a small number of reviews did include data from a wider range of methods including qualitative studies which added to the analysis in the papers [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]. The majority of reviews report strategies achieving small impacts (normally on processes of care). There is much less evidence that these strategies have shifted patient outcomes. In this section, we discuss the different EPOC-defined implementation strategies in turn. Interestingly, we found only two ‘new’ approaches in this review that did not fit into the existing EPOC approaches. These are a review focused on the use of social media and a review considering toolkits. In addition to single interventions, we also discuss multi-faceted interventions. These were the most common intervention approach overall. A summary is provided in Table  2 .

Educational strategies

The overview identified three systematic reviews focusing on educational strategies. Grudniewicz et al. [ 22 ] explored the effectiveness of printed educational materials on primary care physician knowledge, behaviour and patient outcomes and concluded they were not effective in any of these aspects. Koota, Kääriäinen and Melender [ 23 ] focused on educational interventions promoting evidence-based practice among emergency room/accident and emergency nurses and found that interventions involving face-to-face contact led to significant or highly significant effects on patient benefits and emergency nurses’ knowledge, skills and behaviour. Interventions using written self-directed learning materials also led to significant improvements in nurses’ knowledge of evidence-based practice. Although the quality of the studies was high, the review primarily included small studies with low response rates, and many of them relied on self-assessed outcomes; consequently, the strength of the evidence for these outcomes is modest. Wu et al. [ 20 ] questioned if educational interventions aimed at nurses to support the implementation of evidence-based practice improve patient outcomes. Although based on evaluation projects and qualitative data, their results also suggest that positive changes on patient outcomes can be made following the implementation of specific evidence-based approaches (or projects). The differing positive outcomes for educational strategies aimed at nurses might indicate that the target audience is important.

Local opinion leaders

Flodgren et al. [ 24 ] was the only systemic review focusing solely on opinion leaders. The review found that local opinion leaders alone, or in combination with other interventions, can be effective in promoting evidence‐based practice, but this varies both within and between studies and the effect on patient outcomes is uncertain. The review found that, overall, any intervention involving opinion leaders probably improves healthcare professionals’ compliance with evidence-based practice but varies within and across studies. However, how opinion leaders had an impact could not be determined because of insufficient details were provided, illustrating that reporting specific details in published studies is important if diffusion of effective methods of increasing evidence-based practice is to be spread across a system. The usefulness of this review is questionable because it cannot provide evidence of what is an effective opinion leader, whether teams of opinion leaders or a single opinion leader are most effective, or the most effective methods used by opinion leaders.

Pantoja et al. [ 26 ] was the only systemic review focusing solely on manually generated reminders delivered on paper included in the overview. The review explored how these affected professional practice and patient outcomes. The review concluded that manually generated reminders delivered on paper as a single intervention probably led to small to moderate increases in adherence to clinical recommendations, and they could be used as a single quality improvement intervention. However, the authors indicated that this intervention would make little or no difference to patient outcomes. The authors state that such a low-tech intervention may be useful in low- and middle-income countries where paper records are more likely to be the norm.

ICT-focused approaches

The three ICT-focused reviews [ 14 , 27 , 28 ] showed mixed results. Jamal, McKenzie and Clark [ 14 ] explored the impact of health information technology on the quality of medical and health care. They examined the impact of electronic health record, computerised provider order-entry, or decision support system. This showed a positive improvement in adherence to evidence-based guidelines but not to patient outcomes. The number of studies included in the review was low and so a conclusive recommendation could not be reached based on this review. Similarly, Brown et al. [ 28 ] found that technology-enabled knowledge translation interventions may improve knowledge of health professionals, but all eight studies raised concerns of bias. The De Angelis et al. [ 27 ] review was more promising, reporting that ICT can be a good way of disseminating clinical practice guidelines but conclude that it is unclear which type of ICT method is the most effective.

Audit and feedback

Sykes, McAnuff and Kolehmainen [ 29 ] examined whether audit and feedback were effective in dementia care and concluded that it remains unclear which ingredients of audit and feedback are successful as the reviewed papers illustrated large variations in the effectiveness of interventions using audit and feedback.

Non-EPOC listed strategies: social media, toolkits

There were two new (non-EPOC listed) intervention types identified in this review compared to the 2011 review — fewer than anticipated. We categorised a third — ‘care bundles’ [ 36 ] as a multi-faceted intervention due to its description in practice and a fourth — ‘Technology Enhanced Knowledge Transfer’ [ 28 ] was classified as an ICT-focused approach. The first new strategy was identified in Bhatt et al.’s [ 30 ] systematic review of the use of social media for the dissemination of clinical practice guidelines. They reported that the use of social media resulted in a significant improvement in knowledge and compliance with evidence-based guidelines compared with more traditional methods. They noted that a wide selection of different healthcare professionals and patients engaged with this type of social media and its global reach may be significant for low- and middle-income countries. This review was also noteworthy for developing a simple stepwise method for using social media for the dissemination of clinical practice guidelines. However, it is debatable whether social media can be classified as an intervention or just a different way of delivering an intervention. For example, the review discussed involving opinion leaders and patient advocates through social media. However, this was a small review that included only five studies, so further research in this new area is needed. Yamada et al. [ 31 ] draw on 39 studies to explore the application of toolkits, 18 of which had toolkits embedded within larger KT interventions, and 21 of which evaluated toolkits as standalone interventions. The individual component strategies of the toolkits were highly variable though the authors suggest that they align most closely with educational strategies. The authors conclude that toolkits as either standalone strategies or as part of MFIs hold some promise for facilitating evidence use in practice but caution that the quality of many of the primary studies included is considered weak limiting these findings.

Multi-faceted interventions

The majority of the systematic reviews ( n  = 20) reported on more than one intervention type. Some of these systematic reviews focus exclusively on multi-faceted interventions, whilst others compare different single or combined interventions aimed at achieving similar outcomes in particular settings. While these two approaches are often described in a similar way, they are actually quite distinct from each other as the former report how multiple strategies may be strategically combined in pursuance of an agreed goal, whilst the latter report how different strategies may be incidentally used in sometimes contrasting settings in the pursuance of similar goals. Ariyo et al. [ 35 ] helpfully summarise five key elements often found in effective MFI strategies in LMICs — but which may also be transferrable to HICs. First, effective MFIs encourage a multi-disciplinary approach acknowledging the roles played by different professional groups to collectively incorporate evidence-informed practice. Second, they utilise leadership drawing on a wide set of clinical and non-clinical actors including managers and even government officials. Third, multiple types of educational practices are utilised — including input from patients as stakeholders in some cases. Fourth, protocols, checklists and bundles are used — most effectively when local ownership is encouraged. Finally, most MFIs included an emphasis on monitoring and evaluation [ 35 ]. In contrast, other studies offer little information about the nature of the different MFI components of included studies which makes it difficult to extrapolate much learning from them in relation to why or how MFIs might affect practice (e.g. [ 28 , 38 ]). Ultimately, context matters, which some review authors argue makes it difficult to say with real certainty whether single or MFI strategies are superior (e.g. [ 21 , 27 ]). Taking all the systematic reviews together we may conclude that MFIs appear to be more likely to generate positive results than single interventions (e.g. [ 34 , 45 ]) though other reviews should make us cautious (e.g. [ 32 , 43 ]).

While multi-faceted interventions still seem to be more effective than single-strategy interventions, there were important distinctions between how the results of reviews of MFIs are interpreted in this review as compared to the previous reviews [ 8 , 9 ], reflecting greater nuance and debate in the literature. This was particularly noticeable where the effectiveness of MFIs was compared to single strategies, reflecting developments widely discussed in previous studies [ 10 ]. We found that most systematic reviews are bounded by their clinical, professional, spatial, system, or setting criteria and often seek to draw out implications for the implementation of evidence in their areas of specific interest (such as nursing or acute care). Frequently this means combining all relevant studies to explore the respective foci of each systematic review. Therefore, most reviews we categorised as MFIs actually include highly variable numbers and combinations of intervention strategies and highly heterogeneous original study designs. This makes statistical analyses of the type used by Squires et al. [ 10 ] on the three reviews in their paper not possible. Further, it also makes extrapolating findings and commenting on broad themes complex and difficult. This may suggest that future research should shift its focus from merely examining ‘what works’ to ‘what works where and what works for whom’ — perhaps pointing to the value of realist approaches to these complex review topics [ 48 , 49 ] and other more theory-informed approaches [ 50 ].

Some reviews have a relatively small number of studies (i.e. fewer than 10) and the authors are often understandably reluctant to engage with wider debates about the implications of their findings. Other larger studies do engage in deeper discussions about internal comparisons of findings across included studies and also contextualise these in wider debates. Some of the most informative studies (e.g. [ 35 , 40 ]) move beyond EPOC categories and contextualise MFIs within wider systems thinking and implementation theory. This distinction between MFIs and single interventions can actually be very useful as it offers lessons about the contexts in which individual interventions might have bounded effectiveness (i.e. educational interventions for individual change). Taken as a whole, this may also then help in terms of how and when to conjoin single interventions into effective MFIs.

In the two previous reviews, a consistent finding was that MFIs were more effective than single interventions [ 8 , 9 ]. However, like Squires et al. [ 10 ] this overview is more equivocal on this important issue. There are four points which may help account for the differences in findings in this regard. Firstly, the diversity of the systematic reviews in terms of clinical topic or setting is an important factor. Secondly, there is heterogeneity of the studies within the included systematic reviews themselves. Thirdly, there is a lack of consistency with regards to the definition and strategies included within of MFIs. Finally, there are epistemological differences across the papers and the reviews. This means that the results that are presented depend on the methods used to measure, report, and synthesise them. For instance, some reviews highlight that education strategies can be useful to improve provider understanding — but without wider organisational or system-level change, they may struggle to deliver sustained transformation [ 19 , 44 ].

It is also worth highlighting the importance of the theory of change underlying the different interventions. Where authors of the systematic reviews draw on theory, there is space to discuss/explain findings. We note a distinction between theoretical and atheoretical systematic review discussion sections. Atheoretical reviews tend to present acontextual findings (for instance, one study found very positive results for one intervention, and this gets highlighted in the abstract) whilst theoretically informed reviews attempt to contextualise and explain patterns within the included studies. Theory-informed systematic reviews seem more likely to offer more profound and useful insights (see [ 19 , 35 , 40 , 43 , 45 ]). We find that the most insightful systematic reviews of MFIs engage in theoretical generalisation — they attempt to go beyond the data of individual studies and discuss the wider implications of the findings of the studies within their reviews drawing on implementation theory. At the same time, they highlight the active role of context and the wider relational and system-wide issues linked to implementation. It is these types of investigations that can help providers further develop evidence-based practice.

This overview has identified a small, but insightful set of papers that interrogate and help theorise why, how, for whom, and in which circumstances it might be the case that MFIs are superior (see [ 19 , 35 , 40 ] once more). At the level of this overview — and in most of the systematic reviews included — it appears to be the case that MFIs struggle with the question of attribution. In addition, there are other important elements that are often unmeasured, or unreported (e.g. costs of the intervention — see [ 40 ]). Finally, the stronger systematic reviews [ 19 , 35 , 40 , 43 , 45 ] engage with systems issues, human agency and context [ 18 ] in a way that was not evident in the systematic reviews identified in the previous reviews [ 8 , 9 ]. The earlier reviews lacked any theory of change that might explain why MFIs might be more effective than single ones — whereas now some systematic reviews do this, which enables them to conclude that sometimes single interventions can still be more effective.

As Nilsen et al. ([ 6 ] p. 7) note ‘Study findings concerning the effectiveness of various approaches are continuously synthesized and assembled in systematic reviews’. We may have gone as far as we can in understanding the implementation of evidence through systematic reviews of single and multi-faceted interventions and the next step would be to conduct more research exploring the complex and situated nature of evidence used in clinical practice and by particular professional groups. This would further build on the nuanced discussion and conclusion sections in a subset of the papers we reviewed. This might also support the field to move away from isolating individual implementation strategies [ 6 ] to explore the complex processes involving a range of actors with differing capacities [ 51 ] working in diverse organisational cultures. Taxonomies of implementation strategies do not fully account for the complex process of implementation, which involves a range of different actors with different capacities and skills across multiple system levels. There is plenty of work to build on, particularly in the social sciences, which currently sits at the margins of debates about evidence implementation (see for example, Normalisation Process Theory [ 52 ]).

There are several changes that we have identified in this overview of systematic reviews in comparison to the review we published in 2011 [ 8 ]. A consistent and welcome finding is that the overall quality of the systematic reviews themselves appears to have improved between the two reviews, although this is not reflected upon in the papers. This is exhibited through better, clearer reporting mechanisms in relation to the mechanics of the reviews, alongside a greater attention to, and deeper description of, how potential biases in included papers are discussed. Additionally, there is an increased, but still limited, inclusion of original studies conducted in low- and middle-income countries as opposed to just high-income countries. Importantly, we found that many of these systematic reviews are attuned to, and comment upon the contextual distinctions of pursuing evidence-informed interventions in health care settings in different economic settings. Furthermore, systematic reviews included in this updated article cover a wider set of clinical specialities (both within and beyond hospital settings) and have a focus on a wider set of healthcare professions — discussing both similarities, differences and inter-professional challenges faced therein, compared to the earlier reviews. These wider ranges of studies highlight that a particular intervention or group of interventions may work well for one professional group but be ineffective for another. This diversity of study settings allows us to consider the important role context (in its many forms) plays on implementing evidence into practice. Examining the complex and varied context of health care will help us address what Nilsen et al. ([ 6 ] p. 1) described as, ‘society’s health problems [that] require research-based knowledge acted on by healthcare practitioners together with implementation of political measures from governmental agencies’. This will help us shift implementation science to move, ‘beyond a success or failure perspective towards improved analysis of variables that could explain the impact of the implementation process’ ([ 6 ] p. 2).

This review brings together 32 papers considering individual and multi-faceted interventions designed to support the use of evidence in clinical practice. The majority of reviews report strategies achieving small impacts (normally on processes of care). There is much less evidence that these strategies have shifted patient outcomes. Combined with the two previous reviews, 86 systematic reviews of strategies to increase the implementation of research into clinical practice have been conducted. As a whole, this substantial body of knowledge struggles to tell us more about the use of individual and MFIs than: ‘it depends’. To really move forwards in addressing the gap between research evidence and practice, we may need to shift the emphasis away from isolating individual and multi-faceted interventions to better understanding and building more situated, relational and organisational capability to support the use of research in clinical practice. This will involve drawing on a wider range of perspectives, especially from the social, economic, political and behavioural sciences in primary studies and diversifying the types of synthesis undertaken to include approaches such as realist synthesis which facilitate exploration of the context in which strategies are employed. Harvey et al. [ 53 ] suggest that when context is likely to be critical to implementation success there are a range of primary research approaches (participatory research, realist evaluation, developmental evaluation, ethnography, quality/ rapid cycle improvement) that are likely to be appropriate and insightful. While these approaches often form part of implementation studies in the form of process evaluations, they are usually relatively small scale in relation to implementation research as a whole. As a result, the findings often do not make it into the subsequent systematic reviews. This review provides further evidence that we need to bring qualitative approaches in from the periphery to play a central role in many implementation studies and subsequent evidence syntheses. It would be helpful for systematic reviews, at the very least, to include more detail about the interventions and their implementation in terms of how and why they worked.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Before and after study

Controlled clinical trial

Effective Practice and Organisation of Care

High-income countries

Information and Communications Technology

Interrupted time series

Knowledge translation

Low- and middle-income countries

Randomised controlled trial

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Wu Y, Brettle A, Zhou C, Ou J, et al. Do educational interventions aimed at nurses to support the implementation of evidence-based practice improve patient outcomes? A systematic review. Nurse Educ Today. 2018;70:109–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2018.08.026 .

Yost J, Ganann R, Thompson D, Aloweni F, et al. The effectiveness of knowledge translation interventions for promoting evidence-informed decision-making among nurses in tertiary care: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Implement Sci. 2015;10:1–15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-015-0286-1 .

Grudniewicz A, Kealy R, Rodseth RN, Hamid J, et al. What is the effectiveness of printed educational materials on primary care physician knowledge, behaviour, and patient outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analyses. Implement Sci. 2015;10:2–12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-015-0347-5 .

Koota E, Kääriäinen M, Melender HL. Educational interventions promoting evidence-based practice among emergency nurses: a systematic review. Int Emerg Nurs. 2018;41:51–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ienj.2018.06.004 .

Flodgren G, O’Brien MA, Parmelli E, et al. Local opinion leaders: effects on professional practice and healthcare outcomes. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD000125.pub5 .

Arditi C, Rège-Walther M, Durieux P, et al. Computer-generated reminders delivered on paper to healthcare professionals: effects on professional practice and healthcare outcomes. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2017. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD001175.pub4 .

Pantoja T, Grimshaw JM, Colomer N, et al. Manually-generated reminders delivered on paper: effects on professional practice and patient outcomes. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD001174.pub4 .

De Angelis G, Davies B, King J, McEwan J, et al. Information and communication technologies for the dissemination of clinical practice guidelines to health professionals: a systematic review. JMIR Med Educ. 2016;2:e16. https://doi.org/10.2196/mededu.6288 .

Brown A, Barnes C, Byaruhanga J, McLaughlin M, et al. Effectiveness of technology-enabled knowledge translation strategies in improving the use of research in public health: systematic review. J Med Internet Res. 2020;22:e17274. https://doi.org/10.2196/17274 .

Sykes MJ, McAnuff J, Kolehmainen N. When is audit and feedback effective in dementia care? A systematic review. Int J Nurs Stud. 2018;79:27–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2017.10.013 .

Bhatt NR, Czarniecki SW, Borgmann H, et al. A systematic review of the use of social media for dissemination of clinical practice guidelines. Eur Urol Focus. 2021;7:1195–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euf.2020.10.008 .

Yamada J, Shorkey A, Barwick M, Widger K, et al. The effectiveness of toolkits as knowledge translation strategies for integrating evidence into clinical care: a systematic review. BMJ Open. 2015;5:e006808. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006808 .

Afari-Asiedu S, Abdulai MA, Tostmann A, et al. Interventions to improve dispensing of antibiotics at the community level in low and middle income countries: a systematic review. J Glob Antimicrob Resist. 2022;29:259–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jgar.2022.03.009 .

Boonacker CW, Hoes AW, Dikhoff MJ, Schilder AG, et al. Interventions in health care professionals to improve treatment in children with upper respiratory tract infections. Int J Pediatr Otorhinolaryngol. 2010;74:1113–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijporl.2010.07.008 .

Al Zoubi FM, Menon A, Mayo NE, et al. The effectiveness of interventions designed to increase the uptake of clinical practice guidelines and best practices among musculoskeletal professionals: a systematic review. BMC Health Serv Res. 2018;18:2–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3253-0 .

Ariyo P, Zayed B, Riese V, Anton B, et al. Implementation strategies to reduce surgical site infections: a systematic review. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2019;3:287–300. https://doi.org/10.1017/ice.2018.355 .

Borgert MJ, Goossens A, Dongelmans DA. What are effective strategies for the implementation of care bundles on ICUs: a systematic review. Implement Sci. 2015;10:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-015-0306-1 .

Cahill LS, Carey LM, Lannin NA, et al. Implementation interventions to promote the uptake of evidence-based practices in stroke rehabilitation. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD012575.pub2 .

Pedersen ER, Rubenstein L, Kandrack R, Danz M, et al. Elusive search for effective provider interventions: a systematic review of provider interventions to increase adherence to evidence-based treatment for depression. Implement Sci. 2018;13:1–30. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-018-0788-8 .

Jenkins HJ, Hancock MJ, French SD, Maher CG, et al. Effectiveness of interventions designed to reduce the use of imaging for low-back pain: a systematic review. CMAJ. 2015;187:401–8. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.141183 .

Bennett S, Laver K, MacAndrew M, Beattie E, et al. Implementation of evidence-based, non-pharmacological interventions addressing behavior and psychological symptoms of dementia: a systematic review focused on implementation strategies. Int Psychogeriatr. 2021;33:947–75. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1041610220001702 .

Noonan VK, Wolfe DL, Thorogood NP, et al. Knowledge translation and implementation in spinal cord injury: a systematic review. Spinal Cord. 2014;52:578–87. https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2014.62 .

Albrecht L, Archibald M, Snelgrove-Clarke E, et al. Systematic review of knowledge translation strategies to promote research uptake in child health settings. J Pediatr Nurs. 2016;31:235–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2015.12.002 .

Campbell A, Louie-Poon S, Slater L, et al. Knowledge translation strategies used by healthcare professionals in child health settings: an updated systematic review. J Pediatr Nurs. 2019;47:114–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2019.04.026 .

Bird ML, Miller T, Connell LA, et al. Moving stroke rehabilitation evidence into practice: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Clin Rehabil. 2019;33:1586–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269215519847253 .

Goorts K, Dizon J, Milanese S. The effectiveness of implementation strategies for promoting evidence informed interventions in allied healthcare: a systematic review. BMC Health Serv Res. 2021;21:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06190-0 .

Zadro JR, O’Keeffe M, Allison JL, Lembke KA, et al. Effectiveness of implementation strategies to improve adherence of physical therapist treatment choices to clinical practice guidelines for musculoskeletal conditions: systematic review. Phys Ther. 2020;100:1516–41. https://doi.org/10.1093/ptj/pzaa101 .

Van der Veer SN, Jager KJ, Nache AM, et al. Translating knowledge on best practice into improving quality of RRT care: a systematic review of implementation strategies. Kidney Int. 2011;80:1021–34. https://doi.org/10.1038/ki.2011.222 .

Pawson R, Greenhalgh T, Harvey G, et al. Realist review–a new method of systematic review designed for complex policy interventions. J Health Serv Res Policy. 2005;10Suppl 1:21–34. https://doi.org/10.1258/1355819054308530 .

Rycroft-Malone J, McCormack B, Hutchinson AM, et al. Realist synthesis: illustrating the method for implementation research. Implementation Sci. 2012;7:1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-7-33 .

Johnson MJ, May CR. Promoting professional behaviour change in healthcare: what interventions work, and why? A theory-led overview of systematic reviews. BMJ Open. 2015;5:e008592. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008592 .

Metz A, Jensen T, Farley A, Boaz A, et al. Is implementation research out of step with implementation practice? Pathways to effective implementation support over the last decade. Implement Res Pract. 2022;3:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/26334895221105585 .

May CR, Finch TL, Cornford J, Exley C, et al. Integrating telecare for chronic disease management in the community: What needs to be done? BMC Health Serv Res. 2011;11:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-11-131 .

Harvey G, Rycroft-Malone J, Seers K, Wilson P, et al. Connecting the science and practice of implementation – applying the lens of context to inform study design in implementation research. Front Health Serv. 2023;3:1–15. https://doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2023.1162762 .

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Professor Kathryn Oliver for her support in the planning the review, Professor Steve Hanney for reading and commenting on the final manuscript and the staff at LSHTM library for their support in planning and conducting the literature search.

This study was supported by LSHTM’s Research England QR strategic priorities funding allocation and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration South London (NIHR ARC South London) at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Grant number NIHR200152. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care or Research England.

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AB led the conceptual development and structure of the manuscript. EP conducted the searches and data extraction. All authors contributed to screening and quality appraisal. EP and AF wrote the first draft of the methods section. AB, JB and AF performed result synthesis and contributed to the analyses. AB wrote the first draft of the manuscript and incorporated feedback and revisions from all other authors. All authors revised and approved the final manuscript.

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Boaz, A., Baeza, J., Fraser, A. et al. ‘It depends’: what 86 systematic reviews tell us about what strategies to use to support the use of research in clinical practice. Implementation Sci 19 , 15 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-024-01337-z

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-024-01337-z

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Primary research articles.

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How Can I Find Primary Research Articles?

Many of the recommended databases in this subject guide contain primary research articles (also known as empirical articles or research studies). Search in databases like ScienceDirect , MEDLINE , and Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition .

Primary Research Articles: How Will I Know One When I See One?

Primary research articles  to conduct and publish an experiment or research study, an author or team of authors designs an experiment, gathers data, then analyzes the data and discusses the results of the experiment. a published experiment or research study will therefore  look  very different from other types of articles (newspaper stories, magazine articles, essays, etc.) found in our library databases. the following guidelines will help you recognize a primary research article, written by the researchers themselves and published in a scholarly journal., structure of a primary research article typically, a primary research article has the following sections:.

  • The author summarizes her article
  • The author discusses the general background of her research topic; often, she will present a literature review, that is, summarize what other experts have written on this particular research topic
  • The author describes the study she designed and conducted
  • The author presents the data she gathered during her experiment
  • The author offers ideas about the importance and implications of her research findings, and speculates on future directions that similar research might take
  • The author gives a References list of sources she used in her paper

The structure of the article will often be clearly shown with headings: Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion.

A primary research article will almost always contains statistics, numerical data presented in tables. Also, primary research articles are written in very formal, very technical language.

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Takeaways From the Republican South Carolina Primary

Reuters

People wait in line to cast their vote at the Northlake Fire Station during the Republican presidential primary election on Election Day, in Irmo, South Carolina, U.S. February 24, 2024. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer

By James Oliphant

(Reuters) - Frontrunner Donald Trump is hoping to use a sizeable victory in South Carolina’s Republican primary on Saturday to convince rival Nikki Haley to drop out of the presidential race. While the outcome is expected to put Trump even closer to clinching the party’s nomination, Haley has vowed to press on.

Here are some takeaways from the South Carolina primary:

BORDER BASH

Exit polls conducted by Edison Research on Saturday made one thing clear: Trump has boxed out Haley on the issue of immigration and border security.

That mattered in South Carolina, where 41% of voters listed immigration as their top priority. Of those voters, 83% backed Trump and just 16% supported Haley. And of the 70% of voters who believe undocumented immigrants should be deported to their countries of origin, 77% voted for Trump.

At campaign events, Haley has argued that she, too, takes a hard line on immigration, but Republicans don’t seem to be buying it. Trump’s campaign this week released a TV ad titled “Weakness” that claimed Haley opposed Trump’s so-called Muslim “travel ban” during his administration and questioned the need for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The site FactCheck.org called the Trump ad misleading, noting that Haley has been supportive of a wall, but she would have favored a more narrowly tailored ban than the one Trump instituted.

Regardless, Trump’s attacks seem to have stuck, which does not auger well for Haley’s prospects in a party increasingly consumed by the issue of migrants coming across the border.

A WINTER OF DISCONTENT

Trump also continues to hold a strong advantage when it comes to voters who are unhappy with the state of the economy, which, unfortunately for Haley, comprises a large share of the Republican electorate.

A whopping 84% of voters surveyed by Edison said the condition of economy was “not so good or poor” despite low unemployment and a booming stock market. Two-thirds of those voters backed Trump.

Even voters who said their personal financial situation was stable went for Trump in large numbers. Only the small fraction of voters who said the economy was in good shape preferred Haley.

Trump won the majority of voters in all income brackets surveyed by Edison. In what has been his historical pattern, he did best with those who lack a college degree and those who earn less than $50,000 a year.

Overall, if you were a voter upset with the status quo in America, you went for Trump: 46% of respondents to the exit poll said they were “angry” about the state of the country, with Trump grabbing 85% of that vote.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Ross Colvin)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

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Why the Tech Industry Won’t Disrupt Health Care

  • John Glaser,
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Digital transformation will most likely come from established health systems. Here’s what they need to do.

At first glance, it looks like health care in the United States is ripe for disruption. Digital technology advances have the power to help address the shortcomings of care delivery: It costs too much, its quality isn’t what it could and should be, and millions of people live hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital and/or don’t have a primary care doctor. But for many reasons, the incumbents — established health systems — will be extremely hard to displace. Instead, the winners will be health systems that team up with digital tech companies.

We’ve all watched digital innovators demolish certain industries: video and record stores, neighborhood movie theaters, travel agents. A one-time #18 on the Fortune 500, photo film giant Eastman Kodak was felled by digital photography. But some industries and players successfully fend off digital competitors and incorporate their innovations into their daily operations. An Economist article observed that even though most banking has moved online, the average large bank is 138 years old. Walmart, the world’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer, is also the second-largest online retailer.

  • John Glaser is an executive in residence at Harvard Medical School. He previously served as the CIO of Partners Healthcare (now Mass General Brigham), a senior vice president at Cerner, and the CEO of Siemens Health Services. He is co-chair of the HL7 Advisory Council and a board member of the National Committee for Quality Assurance.
  • Sara Vaezy is executive vice president and chief strategy and digital officer at Providence, where she is responsible for corporate strategy, artificial intelligence strategy, marketing, digital, and experience for the integrated delivery network, which includes 51 hospitals and 1,000 clinics serving 5 million patients annually. She also is a member of the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s board of directors and the Harvard Executive Education faculty.
  • Janet Guptill is president and CEO of the Scottsdale Institute, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping its more than 60 large, integrated health systems leverage information and technology to create effective, affordable, and equitable health care centered on whole person care.

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How to identify peer reviewed journals, how to identify primary research articles.

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Peer review is defined as “a process of subjecting an author’s scholarly work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field” ( 1 ). Peer review is intended to serve two purposes:

  • It acts as a filter to ensure that only high quality research is published, especially in reputable journals, by determining the validity, significance and originality of the study.
  • Peer review is intended to improve the quality of manuscripts that are deemed suitable for publication. Peer reviewers provide suggestions to authors on how to improve the quality of their manuscripts, and also identify any errors that need correcting before publication.

How do you determine whether an article qualifies as being a peer-reviewed journal article?

  • If you're searching for articles in certain databases, you can limit your search to peer-reviewed sources simply by selecting a tab or checking a box on the search screen.
  • If you have an article, an indication that it has been through the peer review process will be the publication history , usually at the beginning or end of the article.
  • If you're looking at the journal itself, go to the  editorial statement or instructions to authors  (usually in the first few pages of the journal or at the end) for references to the peer-review process.
  • Lookup the journal by title or ISSN in the ProQuest Source Evaluation Aid . 
  • Careful! Not all information in a peer-reviewed journal is actually reviewed. Editorials, letters to the editor, book reviews, and other types of information don't count as articles, and may not be accepted by your professor.

What about preprint sites and ResearchGate?

  • A preprint is a piece of research that has not yet been peer reviewed and published in a journal. In most cases, they can be considered final drafts or working papers. Preprint sites are great sources of current research - and most preprint sites will provide a link to a later, peer-reviewed version of an article. 
  • ResearchGate is a commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. Members can upload research output including papers, chapters, negative results, patents, research proposals, methods, presentations, etc. Researchers can access these materials, and also contact members to ask for access to material that has not been shared, usually because of copyright restrictions. There is a filter to limit results to articles, but it can be difficult to determine the publication history of ResearchGate items and whether they have been published in peer reviewed sources.

A primary research article reports on an empirical research study conducted by the authors. The goal of a primary research article is to present the result of original research that makes a new contribution to the body of knowledge. 

Characteristics:

  • Almost always published in a peer-reviewed journal
  • Asks a research question or states a hypothesis or hypotheses
  • Identifies a research population
  • Describes a specific research method
  • Tests or measures something
  • Often (but not always) structured in a standard format called IMRAD: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion
  • Words to look for as clues include: analysis, study, investigation, examination, experiment, numbers of people or objects analyzed, content analysis, or surveys.

To contrast, the following are not primary research articles (i.e., they are secondary sources):

  • Literature reviews/Review articles
  • Meta-Analyses (studies that arrive at conclusions based on research from many other studies)
  • Editorials & Letters
  • Dissertations

Articles that are NOT primary research articles may discuss the same research, but they are not reporting on original research, they are summarizing and commenting on research conducted and published by someone else. For example, a literature review provides commentary and analysis of research done by other people, but it does not report the results of the author's own study and is not primary research.

  • Peer Reviewed Journals Quiz How do I know if a journal is peer reviewed? What is peer review, anyway? Take this short quiz to test your knowledge and perhaps learn something new!
  • Primary Research Articles Quiz How do I know if an article is a primary or secondary research article? Are there search techniques that will help me find them? Take this short quiz to test your knowledge and perhaps learn something new!
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Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Primary Care for Patients and Clinicians

  • 1 Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
  • 2 Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
  • 3 Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
  • 4 Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Editorial The Perils of Artificial Intelligence in a Clinical Landscape Isabel Ostrer, MD; Louise Aronson, MD, MFA JAMA Internal Medicine

Primary care is desired by patients and is central to delivering high-quality health care, 1 but its challenges have led to rampant burnout and a worsening shortage of primary care clinicians. 2 One recent study determined that providing primary care for a panel of 2500 primary care patients would require 27 hours per day, 7 days per week. 3 Electronic health records (EHRs) appear to be part of the issue, as primary care clinicians today are spending a large part of their day interacting with them. However, artificial intelligence (AI) promises to offer many ways to improve primary care processes. While the potential to enhance the quality and safety of health care in general and of primary care specifically using AI has been discussed for over 2 decades, the technological leap to widespread availability of generative AI suggests that use will soon affect the practice of primary care on a daily, if not an hourly, basis.

  • Editorial The Perils of Artificial Intelligence in a Clinical Landscape JAMA Internal Medicine

Read More About

Sarkar U , Bates DW. Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Primary Care for Patients and Clinicians. JAMA Intern Med. Published online February 12, 2024. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.7965

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IMAGES

  1. 27 Real Primary Research Examples (2024)

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  2. How to Find a Primary Research Article

    primary research article finder

  3. Primary vs. Secondary

    primary research article finder

  4. Primary vs. Secondary

    primary research article finder

  5. How to Find Primary Research Articles

    primary research article finder

  6. Finding Primary Research Articles

    primary research article finder

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  6. Literature Review conclusions are a great place to find new research gaps!

COMMENTS

  1. Google Scholar

    Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. Search across a wide variety of disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions.

  2. JSTOR Home

    Broaden your research with images and primary sources Broaden your research with images and primary sources. Harness the power of visual materials—explore more than 3 million images now on JSTOR. Search for images Enhance your scholarly research with underground newspapers, magazines, and journals.

  3. Primary Research Articles

    How Can I Find Primary Research Articles? Many of the recommended databases in this subject guide contain primary research articles (also known as empirical articles or research studies). Search in databases like ScienceDirect and MEDLINE. Primary Research Articles: How Will I Know One When I See One? Primary Research Articles

  4. Research Guides: Finding Scholarly Articles: Home

    Review articles are another great way to find scholarly primary research articles. Review articles are not considered "primary research", but they pull together primary research articles on a topic, summarize and analyze them. In Google Scholar, click on Review Articles at the left of the search results screen.

  5. on JSTOR

    JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization helping the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.

  6. Search NCBI databases

    The tool is designed to help improve the discoverability and reuse of research data by making it easier for users to find and connect biomedical datasets. Read more about this new tool, then try it out and share your feedback! Search all biomedical databases provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), an agency of the ...

  7. How to Find Sources

    Research databases. You can search for scholarly sources online using databases and search engines like Google Scholar. These provide a range of search functions that can help you to find the most relevant sources. If you are searching for a specific article or book, include the title or the author's name. Alternatively, if you're just ...

  8. How to Find Primary Research Articles on Google Scholar

    Google Scholar is an online search engine that allows users to find primary research articles. Google Scholar, established in 2004, is a powerful search engine that gives access to scholarly documents including theses, preprints, and books.

  9. Finding Primary Research Articles in the Sciences: Home

    This guide goes over how to find and analyze primary research articles in the sciences (e.g. nutrition, health sciences and nursing, biology, chemistry, physics, sociology, psychology). In addition, the guide explains how to tell the difference between a primary source and a secondary source in scientific subject areas. Recommended Databases

  10. A Guide to Biology: Find Primary Articles

    If you are looking for primary articles or review articles in biology and biomedical topics, these databases will be especially useful. Covers research in all areas of biological science, including animal behavior, biomedicine, zoology, ecology, and others. Coverage is from 1982 to the present.

  11. Peer Review & Primary Research Articles

    How to Identify Primary Research Articles. A primary research article reports on an empirical research study conducted by the authors. The goal of a primary research article is to present the result of original research that makes a new contribution to the body of knowledge. Characteristics: Almost always published in a peer-reviewed journal

  12. Research articles

    research articles. Research articles. Filter By: Article Type. All. All; ... Splenectomy has opposite effects on the growth of primary compared with metastatic tumors in a murine colon cancer ...

  13. How to Find Primary Research Articles

    How to Find Primary Research Articles - NUR 3165 - Nursing Research - UCF Research Guides at University of Central Florida Libraries NUR 3165 - Nursing Research Finding Primary Research Articles - Overview There are several ways to locate primary research articles as you will see in the following practice exercises (see next page).

  14. Is it Primary Research? How Do I Know?

    Simply limiting your search results in a database to "peer-reviewed" will not retrieve a list of only primary research studies. Learn to recognize the parts of a primary research study. Terminology will vary slightly from discipline to discipline and from journal to journal. However, there are common components to most research studies. STEP ONE:

  15. Identifying Articles

    Primary research articles provide a background on their subject by summarizing previously conducted research, this typically occurs only in the Introduction section of the article. Review Article Review articles do not report new experiments.

  16. Where to find peer reviewed articles for research

    3. Filter your search results and analyze trends. Group, rank and analyze the research articles in your search results to optimize the relevancy and efficiency of your efforts. In the Web of Science, researchers can cut through the data in a number of creative ways. This will help you when you're stuck wondering where to find peer reviewed ...

  17. Primary Research

    Primary research is a research method that relies on direct data collection, rather than relying on data that's already been collected by someone else. In other words, primary research is any type of research that you undertake yourself, firsthand, while using data that has already been collected is called secondary research.

  18. Identifying Primary and Secondary Research Articles

    (415) 422-5399 Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing & Health Professions Primary Research Articles Primary research articles report on a single study. In the health sciences, primary research articles generally describe the following aspects of the study: The study's hypothesis or research question

  19. Finding Primary Sources for Teachers and Students

    DocsTeach Find and create interactive learning activities with primary source documents that promote historical thinking skills. Finding Primary Sources Primary Sources from DocsTeach Thousands of online primary source documents from the National Archives to bring the past to life as classroom teaching tools.

  20. Library: Finding Primary Articles in PubMed: Home

    To limit to full text articles, click on the PubMed Central link in the PubMed description. Type in a search for your topic. Press Enter or click the Search button. You will retrieve a list of articles. To limit to primary research articles, click on Clinical Trial or click More to select other type of trials and original research studies.

  21. Finding Primary Research

    The TRIP Database is a UK-based meta-search engine for clinical evidence.After typing in your search, you may apply filters from the right sidebar. TRIP does have a filter for PRIMARY RESEARCH and KEY PRIMARY RESEARCH and CONTROL TRIALS.. However please note that this is an open-access (free) database, and the links to the articles will take you to PubMed records and not the actual articles ...

  22. 'It depends': what 86 systematic reviews tell us about what strategies

    We developed a comprehensive systematic literature search strategy based on the terms used in the previous reviews to identify studies that looked explicitly at interventions designed to turn research evidence into practice. The search was performed in June 2022 in four electronic databases: Medline, Embase, Cochrane and Epistemonikos.

  23. Primary Research Articles

    A published experiment or research study will therefore look very different from other types of articles (newspaper stories, magazine articles, essays, etc.) found in our library databases. The following guidelines will help you recognize a primary research article, written by the researchers themselves and published in a scholarly journal ...

  24. Takeaways From the Republican South Carolina Primary

    Reuters. People wait in line to cast their vote at the Northlake Fire Station during the Republican presidential primary election on Election Day, in Irmo, South Carolina, U.S. February 24, 2024.

  25. Why the Tech Industry Won't Disrupt Health Care

    An Economist article observed that even though most banking has moved online, the average large bank is 138 years old. Walmart, the world's largest brick-and-mortar retailer, is also the second ...

  26. I Am a Man: Why Black History Matters

    The use of the three primary colors in isolation would cause us to miss the full beauty of God's vivid and picturesque creation. The most soulful country music can't express the entire melodious corpus.

  27. Peer Review & Primary Research Articles

    A primary research article reports on an empirical research study conducted by the authors. The goal of a primary research article is to present the result of original research that makes a new contribution to the body of knowledge. Characteristics: Almost always published in a peer-reviewed journal; Asks a research question or states a ...

  28. Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Primary Care for Patients and

    Primary care is desired by patients and is central to delivering high-quality health care, 1 but its challenges have led to rampant burnout and a worsening shortage of primary care clinicians. 2 One recent study determined that providing primary care for a panel of 2500 primary care patients would require 27 hours per day, 7 days per week. 3 Electronic health records (EHRs) appear to be part ...