Searching the Literature for Safe Patient Handling and Mobility Evidence

Performing an effective and efficient literature search is a foundational skill for all clinicians dedicated to evidence-based practice. Clinicians interested in safe patient handling and mobility use published literature for many issues, including identifying unsafe workplace practices, workers at risk, methods to assess ergonomic stressors on the patient and the healthcare worker, and intervention strategies to ameliorate a given handling situation. Straus et al¹ describe 5 steps to evidence-based practice: asking clinical questions, searching for evidence, appraising the evidence for its validity and its usefulness, integrating the evidence with our clinical expertise and patient values, and evaluating one’s effectiveness in the preceding steps. This paper describes the first 2 steps of this process as related to SPHM interventions: asking clinical questions and searching for evidence.

Scalzitti DA, Harwood KJ, Campo M

Keywords: evidence-based medicine, safe patient  handling and mobility, clinical questions, PICO, searching