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How Evidence Maps Can Be Used
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The organization of each evidence map is unique to the clinical population that the map covers, however there are some general categories that are included across all of the maps, such as "Assessment/Diagnosis", "Treatment," and "Service delivery." Remember that by clicking into one category box, additional, more-detailed levels of information may appear. Boxes that appear gray do not have any evidence contained within them; however, as new evidence becomes available, these boxes may become populated. The user should also consider that many specific treatments or assessments for a given population may not have a box at all if there has not been any evidence found in that clinical area. Again, information for these specific assessments and treatments will be provided as it becomes available.
External Scientific Evidence
When many clinicians hear the words "evidence-based practice," they think about stacks of journal articles. While current research findings are an important component of evidence-based decision making, clinicians should always consider Clinical Expertise/Expert Opinion and Client/Patient/Caregiver Perspectives as well. Finding and synthesizing research information can be a daunting task for clinicians, clients, and caregivers, as well as for researchers. In the External Scientific Evidence section of the evidence maps, only evidence-based guidelines and systematic reviews are included. Evidence-based guidelines provide recommendations that are based on the available research evidence; while systematic reviews pull together a comprehensive synthesis of the research on a given topic without making specific recommendations for clinical practice. In some cases, no evidence-based guidelines or evidence-based systematic reviews are available for a given treatment, assessment/diagnosis, or service delivery model.
Key recommendations or conclusions from individual systematic reviews and guidelines are listed. Under each listing there is a link that will take readers to a full summary of the review or guideline.
"Evidence-based" guidelines included in this section differ from "consensus-based" guidelines included in the "Clinical Expertise/Expert Opinion" map section by the methods with which the recommendations were formed. Guidelines achieving a sufficient quality score on the "Methodology" AGREE criteria subset are listed here as "evidence-based guidelines." Systematic reviews included in this section are reviews and meta-analyses that provide a systematic search of the literature.
For guidelines, summaries include the AGREE quality rating, description, full recommendations, key words, and a link to access the full guideline report if available.
For systematic reviews, summaries include quality ratings based on five quality indicators, description, basic study information (e.g., population, intervention, number of included studies, etc.), full conclusions and a link to access the review. The five indicators of quality are:
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The review addresses a clearly focused question
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Criteria for inclusion of studies are provided
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Search strategy is described in sufficient detail for replication
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Included studies are assessed for study quality
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Quality assessments are reproducible
Clinical Expertise/Expert Opinion
When engaging in evidence-based decision making, clinicians often forget that their own clinical experience as well as the experience of colleagues and experts in the field plays an important role.
Clinicians should be familiar with ASHA Practice Policy Documents, as these documents detail the responsibilities, ethics, and scope of practice for clinicians. While ASHA Practice Policy Documents generally do not suggest specific treatments that should or should not be practiced, statements are made on occasion to warn clinicians against using treatments that are potentially harmful. Relevant ASHA Practice Policy Documents are listed in this section along with a brief summary and a link to the full-text of the document.
Consensus-based guidelines may also be a valuable tool, as these documents generally provide recommendations decided upon by experts in the field. Each guideline is rated by the AGREE criteria to ensure quality and only guidelines achieving a rating of Recommended or Recommended with provisos are included in this section. These consensus-based guidelines differ from evidence-based guidelines (included under External Scientific Evidence) by the method used to formulate recommendations. Similar to evidence-based guidelines, the full summary contains the AGREE rating, description, recommendations, keywords, and a link to access the full-text of the guideline.
Client/Patient/Caregiver Perspectives
It is always important to consider the needs and wishes of the client, the client’s family, and/or caregivers when making clinical decisions. Unlike other sections of the map that are limited to research syntheses, this section of the map includes individual research studies. Any study, regardless of design, providing measures of client/patient or caregiver satisfaction is included. Given the quantity of research available, this collection of articles is not intended to be exhaustive. This section includes a brief description of studies and their findings. A link to access the full-text of the article is included.
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Using-Evidence-Maps
