Selecting a topic

research in practice for adults makes every effort to respond to practitioners' requests when selecting topics for evidence clusters. We also take into account issues that are currently of particular interest and relevance in adult health and social care. Staff working in research in practice for adults' Partner agencies can suggest topics for future evidence clusters by contacting This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Methods

Evidence Clusters are developed using techniques influenced by those used in systematic reviewing in the social sciences. However, while a systematic review can take nine months or longer to complete, evidence clusters must be developed more rapidly in order to respond quickly to what practitioners need and request. We have adapted and condensed traditional systematic reviewing techniques in order to complete each evidence cluster within a 6 "“ 8 week period, and hope that in doing so we provide practitioners with a resource that contains a clear, accessible summary of the most up-to-date evidence on a given topic.

The most important ways in which evidence cluster methodology differs from traditional systematic reviewing techniques are as follows:

• the search strategy is more specific, and less sensitive
• once a list of citations has been collated, at an initial screening stage, the titles of papers and journals are examined meticulously to identify those of particular relevance, which can mean excluding a larger proportion of citations at this point in the process than would otherwise be excluded
• a single experienced reviewer (as opposed to more than one in collaboration) makes careful decisions about which studies are included

These changes to traditional methods mean that inevitably, on occasion, some pieces of evidence may not be identified. In particular these may be smaller studies and non-English language papers. It is believed that, in most cases, any relevant larger-scale studies, reviews, and studies carried out in the UK will be identified and that these are studies that will be most relevant to the intended audience, i.e. practitioners in UK health and social care services.

We update evidence clusters at least once every twelve months, and their web-based format allows new evidence to be added to them as it is identified. In order to further ensure that evidence clusters include the most relevant, up-to-date evidence on any given topic, we invite readers to suggest examples of evidence that they feel should feature in an existing evidence cluster by contacting This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Step-by-step process

The process of developing an evidence cluster is as follows:

• a topic is identified, taking into careful consideration any suggestions from staff in Partner agencies and current topics of interest in adult social care
• from the broader topic, a clear and focused question is defined
• a scoping search is carried out, using key internet-based bibliographical databases and websites of relevant organisations
• a detailed search strategy is developed using the findings of the scoping search, and then applied to key internet-based bibliographical databases and websites of relevant organisations. Recent issues of key journals are searched by hand
• the titles and abstracts of records identified are screened, and irrelevant papers are excluded
• remaining articles are read in full, and key evidence is extracted
• the evidence is summarised in an accessible format, which is then published on the research in practice for adults website as an evidence cluster

Contact us

Please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you would like to:

• recommend a research paper or practice example for inclusion in one of the existing evidence clusters
• suggest a topic to be covered in a future evidence cluster
• discuss any aspect of evidence clusters