Clinical trials are research studies performed in people that are aimed at evaluating a medical, surgical, or behavioral intervention. They are the primary way that researchers find out if a new treatment, like a new drug or diet or medical device (for example, a pacemaker) is safe and effective in people.
CINHAL is a place for discovering clinical trials. Perform a keyword search using the topic and limit the publication type to clinical trial. Add additional keywords to narrow the search to a group. Also, limit the search to the desired date range of when the information was published.
PubMed can also be used to find clinical trials using the same search technique as CINHAL. PubMed will retrieve different results due to indexing. It is import to search both data bases to find the research you need.
The National Institute of Health provides a clinical trials database. This allows uses to see trials that are taking place, ongoing, and completed. These are privately and publicly funded around the world. The results of completed trials may be found in the database.
This article will help in understanding what is found in a clinical trial report, and how to interpret the data.
How to Read a Scientific Article
A slide show, developed by Purdue University Library, that steps you through an approach to reading a research article. In addition, the presentation explains why research articles are important to use when conducting one's own research.
