Evidence-based information dervices: an example of a literature review

Abstract

High quality, accurate and up-to-date information is very important in the field of health sciences. Doctors, dentists, nurses, researchers and other health professionals use medical libraries and information centers in order to meet their need for knowledge. In this study, the concepts of "evidence", "evidence-based practice", "evidence-based knowledge" are defined for medical librarians; and an important part of the evidence-based information services - the literature review - is provided. The literature review presented in medical libraries is an important part of evidence-based information services. It is one of the main topics of user education especially organized for health professionals in medical libraries. In addition, the number of publications and their results were evaluated by using keywords related to the concept of "evidence" from the PubMed database, which is frequently used by health professionals to access evidence based information. The sample of the study constitutes from systematic collections and clinical studies published in the PubMed database between the years 2000-2016. As a result of this study, "evidence-based" medicine, dentistry and nursing researches in the field of health sciences are seen to increase rapidly.