Finding Clinical Practice Guidelines

Clinical practice guidelines aim to help providers choose appropriate healthcare options for specific clinical circumstances. You may need to find these guidelines to support your coursework. This guide provides instructions on how to find guidelines in the library databases, eBooks, and organization and government websites.

Search Everything

Your best bet for finding clinical practice guidelines is to use the Search Everything box on the library homepage and add a search term of guidelines to your search. Example search: statins AND "heart disease" AND guidelines.

You also use filters in a few of our databases to find guidelines. Below are instructions for databases with guideline filters.

Databases with Guideline Filters

CINAHL with Full Text

To find guidelines in this database, follow the steps below.

1. Select the database link above. This will take you directly to the advanced search page.
2. Enter your keywords in the search box.
3. Move down to Limit Your Results.
4. Select Practice Guidelines under the Publication Type menu, as shown in the image below, and select Search.

Medline Complete

To find guidelines in this database, follow the steps below.

1. Select the database link above. This will take you directly to the advanced search page.
2. Enter your keywords in the search box.
3. Move down to Limit Your Results.
4. Select Practice Guideline under the Publication Type menu, as shown in the image below, and select Search.

PubMed

To find guidelines in this database, follow the steps below.

1. Select the database link above.
2. Enter your keywords in the search box.
3. Select Search.
4. Move down and select Additional Filters on the left-hand side of the search results.
5. Select Article Type in the left-hand navigation menu.
6. Select Practice Guideline from the menu, as shown in the image below, and select Show.

UpToDate

To find clinical practice guidelines in UpToDate, follow the steps below.

1. Use the search box on the homepage to look up diseases, symptoms, lab abnormalities, procedures, or drugs. Enter your term, and if it appears in the auto-complete menu, select it. If not, select the Magnifying Glass icon to search. The image below shows a search for ADHD.

2. Select the title of your topic in the search results to enter the overview. The image below shows Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in adults: Treatment overview selected from the search results.

3. In the left-hand navigation menu, select Society Guideline Links as shown in the image below.

4. Select the hyperlink in this section. The image below shows the See “Society guideline links: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" link selected from this section.

5. Use the left-hand navigation menu to browse guidelines by geographic region. The image below shows guidelines for the United States.

Note! You will have to create an account before you search UpToDate. You can find Create an Account Instructions on the BSN and MPAS Program guides.