Knowledge Services offer a range of training courses designed to equip staff with the skills they need to apply evidence based practice to their role. We provide training on a range of topics from how to search for information to critical appraisal. Our courses enable staff to find, appraise and apply information appropriately and equip them with the skills needed to be evidence-based practitioners.

Please see course details below. If you would like to book a place on one of the courses please make your booking via MyHR on PIMS.  Please note there is a £50 fee if a booked place is not cancelled at least two days before the course date.

Learn how to access authoritative, evidence based research by using healthcare databases to conduct a search. We will signpost you to a number of bibliographic databases, which you can search to find references to journal articles and other published papers. We provide training on the following platforms: Ovid, Ebsco, Proquest and PubMed.

Objectives

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

• Access and identify appropriate databases for their search
• Construct and refine a search strategy
• Configure the databases to save and share results and run automatic searches

To really understand a subject you need to read the grey literature. Grey literature covers conference proceedings, poster presentations, government websites and lots more. It can be found on the deep web, in subscription databases or organisation websites.

Objectives

By the end of the session participants will be able to:

• Identify grey literature and what to consider when using grey literature
• Identify which search engines and resources to use and how to explore their advanced features
• Evaluate web resources for currency, reliability and accuracy

This course if suitable for those wishing to broaden their search skills and for searching subjects not covered within Healthcare Databases (HDAS).

Critical appraisal is a systematic process used to assess the usefulness and integrity of research. It helps identify the strengths and weaknesses of a research article.

Objectives

• What is critical appraisal and how can it help you?
• To identify different types of journal article and apply the relevant framework
• To understand commonly used statistics and how to evaluate them

This course provides an introduction to critical appraisal and will be useful to anyone undertaking study or who needs to evaluate journal articles for service delivery. It also includes hints and tips for making the most out of the graphs and tables.