The EBSCO mobile app - information on the move

The EBSCO mobile app is a new way for you to easily access high quality healthcare information on the go.

The app is a really useful tool for searching, providing quick and easy access to content wherever you are. From one search box you can search across library resources and online content including journal articles, guidelines, e-books, evidence summaries and more.

It features simple, mobile-friendly displays for searching, scanning results, liking, and sharing. 

You can also save content into your folder which will then be accessible on the EBSCO platform, meaning you can synchronise your searches and saved information automatically across multiple devices.

To get you started we have created a quick guide to the app, covering setting up and logging in, as well as searching and saving content. You can find on our website here.

EBSCO also have a video tutorial which you can find on YouTube.

The only other thing you will need is an OpenAthens password, and if you don't already have one, it is the work of a few minutes to register online at https://openathens.nice.org.uk/.

The app is free to download and available on Google Play for Android devices and Apple's App Store for iOS, or you can scan the QR code below.

If you have any questions or need any help with the EBSCO app, or any other library resources, we'd be happy to help...

Changes to OpenAthens password requirements

OpenAthens is the key to unlocking access to all of the electronic content available to you purchased by the Library Service, and nationally by Health Education England.

An OA account provides you with access to electronic books and journals, databases and other key evidence resources. 

OA have recently changed their password requirements for all user accounts to align with UK National Cyber Security Council guidance. Having nudged users to update their passwords over the last few months, this is now mandatory: everyone with a non-compliant password must update it at login.

Here is some guidance you can use if you are struggling to choose a suitable password:

• password length must be between 10 and 100 charact
  ers and pass a strength assessment
• passwords are case sensitive, and just about any character from any language is fine, including spaces (if it's on the keyboard you're using it should be ok)
• one option is to use a passphrase – a string of three random words such as vaseclockbox (think along the lines of what3words)

Passwords cannot:

• be the same as the username
• contain words known by hackers to be commonly used such as 'password' or 'letmein'
• contain non-printable characters such as control codes

Please contact one of the libraries if you have any questions about OpenAthens.

iHealth Facts - health claims fact checked

iHealth Facts is a web site aimed at the public where you can quickly check on how reliable health related claims are and what the evidence is to support them.

The site also aims to help the public to use evidence to make their own health related decisions.

You can use the site to search for any health related question, as well as seeing the reply to previous enquiries.

Questions are answered with a simple summary, as well as having links to the research and an overview of the evidence used.

The site is run by Health Research Board-Trials Methodology Research Network (HRB-TMRN), Evidence Synthesis Ireland and Cochrane Ireland.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) information

In light of the ongoing situation with the COVID-19 virus we have put together a short list of useful resources.

Department of Health and Social Care / Public Health England:

• Coronavirus latest news and announcements
• Coronavirus: latest information and advice for the public
• Coronavirus action plan
• NHS informaton on coronavirus
• Coronavirus (COVID-19): list of all guidance
• Coronavirus (COVID-19): UK government response

In the light of the current outbreak, a number of publishers have made information on the virus freely available.

Journal articles and research:

• BMJ: Coronavirus: latest news and resources
• BMJ Best Practice: Covid-19 
• Elsevier: Novel Coronavirus Information Centre has clinical guidance, patient education material and nursing care plans in English and Mandarin
• The Lancet: Coronavirus Hub
• New England Journal of Medicine: 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
• Springer Nature: Novel Coronavirus (2019CoV)  
• Wiley: Coronavirus Research

Other useful information:

• Public Health England Library and Knowledge Service Finding the evidence: Coronavirus (Links to resources, research and updates)
• CDC: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
• China CDC: Tracking the Epidemic Number of cases and deaths (in English) 
• World Health Organization: Coronavirus

News sources:

• BBC News: Coronavirus Outbreak
• CNN: Coronavirus News
• FullFact: Facts on Wuhan coronavirus (Debunking fake news stories about the outbreak)
• The Guardian: Coronavirus Outbreak

Web site of the month: NIHR Search Signals

NIHR Search Signals

Designed to make important research evidence easily accessible to clinicians, practitioners and managers, the NHS National Institute for Health Research have set up a service called Search Signals as part of their Dissemination Centre Portal.

Each week they publish three or four new ‘Signals’ – short summaries of health research that have appeared recently in peer-reviewed journals.

This is a free, open access site and is fully searchable. Anyone can sign up on the website to receive a monthly update of all Signals that are published, or choose to receive Signals in particular categories.There is also an RSS feed available.

This summer the Dissemination Centre launched a new product: ‘My Signals’, which gives different readers’ personal perspectives on research published in the Signals format. The latest of these has been selected by two surgeons.

Search Signals is a great way to keep up to date with short summaries of the latest evidence and expert commentary.  Highly recommended.

Web site of the month: Cochrane Clinical Answers

NHS staff now have access to a new resource, Cochrane Clinical Answers. Covering 32 different clinical specialities, it provides short, readable, clinically focused access to the high quality research from the Cochrane Library. Each question is designed to be clinically relevant, aiming to inform decision making at the point of care.

Each clinical answer contains a clinical question, a short answer and the ability to look deeper into the evidence from Cochrane reviews, displayed in a user friendly format. You can browse all the answers by broad topic areas, or search for more specific information.

Cochrane Clinical Answers is aimed at healthcare professionals and is a very useful resource for obtaining short, actionable evidence that can be used in clinical practice. 

New web site: Fact Check Central

factcheckcentral.org

Fact Check Central is produced by Sense About Science who's main aim to to enable the public to make sense of scientific developments and evidence.

Featuring a lot of health stories, but also covering food and diet, education, policy and the media, the site aggregates stories from blogs and sites that offer scrutiny and high quality analysis of claims and news stories for factual accuracy.

More than that, as Sense About Science say on their blog about the site launch, "fact checking isn't just about separating true from false. Done well, it can give proper context to claims, allow space for deeper understanding, and deflate the rhetoric and bluster that often surrounds controversial issues."

Fact Check Central is a really useful site for getting a balanced, factual view of stories and claims in the media, and in an election year, it could prove very useful indeed...

Web site of the month: Research the Headlines

http://researchtheheadlines.org

Research the Headlines is a blog that looks at how research and research findings are portrayed in the media.

Similarly to the Behind the Headlines service on NHS Choices, Research the Headlines takes a media report of a story as a starting point and then looks at the actual research and what that might mean.

The blog covers a lot of science based research, but health and biomedical feature very heavily. It is written in a way that does not require a research background to understand, but will be of equal interest to those who do.

The contributors have also produced a series of top tips for people to do their own research of the headlines.

Research the Headlines is produced by the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Young Academy of Scotland.

July Eyes on Evidence from Nice

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the July issue you can find:

• Antipyretic therapy for children with fever
• School environments and student health
• Physiotherapy in Parkinson's disease
• Cognitive behaviour therapy for health anxiety

You can find all the previous issues of Eyes on Evidence or subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

There are also two new Evidence Updates highlighting new information worth considering along side current guidance:

• Sickle cell acute painful episode (NICE Guideline 143)
• Service user experience in adult mental health (Nice Guideline 136)

June Eyes on Evidence from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new
evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the June issue you can find:

• Acid-suppressive drugs and oesophageal adenocarinoma in Barrett's oesophagus
• Prescriptions for anxiolytics and hypnotics and risk of death
• Assessment and treatment of dementia in older adults
• Bedtime schedules and children's cognition and behaviour
• Trained glycaemia alert dogs for people with type 1 diabetes 

You can find all the previous issues of Eyes on Evidence or subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

There are also three new Evidence Updates highlighting new information worth considering along side current guidance:

• Autism in adults (NICE Guideline 142)
• Opioids in palliative care (NICE Guideline 140)
• Physical activity and the environment (NICE Public Health Guideline 8)

Web site of the month: The Campbell Library

The Campbell Collaboration Library of Systematic Reviews is a collection of high quality evidence on the effects of social interventions in three interlinked areas, social welfare, crime and justice, and education.

Similarly to the Cochrane Library in health, the Campbell Collaboration is a research network that conducts systematic reviews with the intention of supporting evidence-based decision making.

The Campbell Library is simple to search and offers free full text of all of its published reviews (click here to see an example of a systematic review on mindfulness).

The advance search feature enables searches to be filtered by area of interest, type of document and publication year. The search history feature enables you to combine different search terms for more accurate searching. There is a user guide on the site that takes you through all the searching features.

If you are looking for high quality, non-clinical evidence around social interventions, education or criminology, the Campbell Library is a really good place to start.

April Eyes on Evidence from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the April issue you can find:

• E-cigarette awareness and use to quit smoking
• Beta-2 agonists and exercise-induced asthma
• Blood pressure control with home telemonitoring and pharmacist management
• Risk factors for congenital abnormalities
• Antidepressant use in late pregnancy and risk of postpartum haemorrhages
• CT scans in childhood or adolescence and risk of cancer
• Alcohol use disorders: preventing harmful drinking

You can find all the previous issues of Eyes on Evidence or subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

March Eyes on Evidence

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the March issue you can find:

• Blood oxygen levels in preterm infants
• Premature mortality in people with epilepsy
• Oral contraceptive pills in preventing ovarian cancer
• Tamsulosin for benign prostatic hyperplasia and risk of severe hypotension
• Socioeconomic disadvantage and onset of disabling chronic conditions in childhood

You can find all the previous issues of Eyes on Evidence or subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

Web site of the month: Richard Lehman's Journal Watch

Journal Watch is a weekly blog written by Oxfordshire GP Richard Lehman, and hosted by the BMJ (although you can find an archive of blog posts going back to 2005 on the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine site).

Every week Richard reviews the content of some of the main medical journals (the BMJ, Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine). He picks articles that will be of interest to most doctors and writes short, pithy summaries of them, often with a wry commentary.

The blog is humourous, irreverent and informative (and even includes a "Plant of the week" section for those with a more horticultural bent).

Journal Watch is well worth a look for those wanting to keep up with new medical research whilst simultaneously being entertained. You can also find Richard on Twitter.

February Eyes on Evidence

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the February issue you can find:

• Iodine deficiency in pregnancy
• Silicone cervical pessaries in women with multiple pregnancies
• Prenatal valproate exposure and autism in children
• End-of-life care in care homes with no on-site nursing provision
• Training primary care professionals in multiple behaviour change counselling

You can find all the previous issues of Eyes on Evidence or subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

There are also two new NICE Evidence Updates highlighting new information worth considering along site current guidance:

• Patient experience in adult NHS services
• The epilepsies 

January Eyes on Evidence from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the January issue you can find:

• MRI in follow-up assessment of sciatica treatment
• Antibiotics and community Clostridium difficile infection
• Interventions to improve physical activity in socioeconomically disadvantaged women
• Impact of smoke free legislation on population health
• Effects of housing improvements on health
• QIPP case study - Stratified cancer pathways: redesigning services for those living with cancer and beyond
• Evidence update: Post-traumatic stress disorder

You can find all the previous issues of Eyes on Evidence or subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

December Eyes on Evidence from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the December issue you can find:

• Family presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation
• Men's health interventions in football clubs
• Corticosteroids in exacerbations of COPD 
• Sacrocolpopexy with Burch colposuspension in pelvic organ prolapse
• Women's perspectives on overdiagnosis in screening for breast cancer
• Acute cough in adults and managing patient expectations in antibiotic prescribing 
• QIPP case study - Saving money and increasing quality by improving referral practice through peer-reviewed referral management 

You can find all the previous issues of Eyes on Evidence or subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

Website of the month: the National Elf Service

Produced by Minervation, the National Elf Service is a collection of web sites aimed at health professionals and is a really useful resource for keeping up to date with the latest evidence and what it might mean for practice.

The elves (who are subject experts), find the latest high quality research, critically appraise it and then summarise the evidence in short, easy to read, blog style entries across a range of topics.

The current elf service is made up of:

The elves hard a work appraising evidence

• Commissioning Elf
• Dental Elf
• Diabetes Elf
• Education Elf
• Learning Disabilities
• Lifestyle Elf
• Mental Elf
• Musculoskeletal Elf

You can sign up to receive email alerts for new content. You can follow all of the elves by RSS feed or FaceBook and they are also very active on Twitter.

The National Elf Service is a great site for keeping up to date with the latest high quality research evidence, which has already been appraised for quality and summarised into "bite size" pieces. Highly recommended.

November Eyes on Evidence from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services  which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this may mean for current practice.

In the November issue you can find:

• Bias reporting of randomised controlled trials in breast cancer
• Prevention and treatment of pressure ulcers
• Intermittent pneumatic compression for deep vein thrombosis in patients with stroke
• Passive smoking and meningococcal disease in children and young people
• Minimally invasive surgery for gastro-oesophogeal reflux disease 
• Evidence update on urinary tract infections in children 

You can find all the previous issues of Eyes on Evidence and subscribe by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

October Eyes on Evidence from NICE

 Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services  which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this may mean for current practice.

In the October issue you can find:

Training in patient-centred clinical consultations
A Cochrane review notes that training in patient-centred approaches for healthcare professionals may have positive effects on patients' experiences of consultation processes.

Increased risk of venous thromboembolism with glucocorticoid use
A Danish case-control study finds that use of glucocorticoids is associated with an increased risk of venous thromboembolism.

Weight in pregnancy and risk of operative delivery
A cohort study shows that women who gain large amounts of weight during pregnancy are at increased risk of needing operative delivery.

Advanced airway management after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest
A prospective population study suggests that, compared with bag-valve-mask ventilation, advanced airway management is associated with lower rates of favourable neurological outcomes after out-of hospital cardiac arrest.

Physical activity and behaviour during school break times in British white and Pakistani girls aged 9–11 years
A study suggests that British Pakistani girls may be less active than British white girls during school break times.

Evidence Updates
NICE has recently published Evidence Updates on:

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder