The Institute of Medicine defines clinical practice guidelines as “statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options”. See reference here.
The National Guidelines Clearinghouse through AHRQ
National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) is a database of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and related documents. It is maintained as a public resource by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TRIP is a clinical search engine designed to allow users to quickly and easily find and use high-quality research evidence to support their practice and/or care.
Agree II (This is the one you will use for your assignment)
Summary: The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research & Evaluation (AGREE) Instrument assesses both the quality of the reporting, and the quality of some aspects of recommendations. It provides an assessment of the predicted validity of a guideline, that is the likelihood that it will achieve its intended outcome. It does not assess the impact of a guideline on patients outcomes.
Authors: The AGREE Collaboration, St George's Hospital Medical School, London http://www.agreetrust.org/agree-ii/
Criteria for Evaluating Treatment Guidelines
Summary: This document presents a set of criteria to be used in evaluating treatment guidelines that have been promulgated by health care organizations, government agencies, professional associations, or other entities.1 Although originally developed for mental health interventions, the criteria presented are equally applicable in other health service areas. Author: The American Psychological Association
iCAHE Guideline Quality Checklist
Summary: The iCAHE guideline checklist provides clinicians with a quick way of appraising the quality of a clinical guideline. It consists of 14 questions and can be used either as a checklist or a total score.
Authors: The International Centre for Allied Health Evidence (iCAHE), UniSA, Australia
Provides indexing for 3,024 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health, with indexing back to 1937. Offering complete coverage of English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses’ Association, it covers nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines.
A built-in way to refine and direct your Google search by limiting to the controlled domains, using exact matches, and more.
Other Databases
Depending on your topic area, you may want to look in databases other than CINAHL. Try those listed below first: