1. National Practice Guidelines (good for background, but can be out of date on new treatments)

• UK – National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)
• US – ECRI Guidelines Trust 
• Canada – Canadian Medical Association
• Australia and New Zealand – The Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists

2. Search for good quality systematic reviews or meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

• Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR)
• Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD)
• ‘Primary’ databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, PsycInfo)
  • Note: use article type filter "Systematic Review" and/or "Meta-Analysis"

3. Search for a single randomized controlled trial

• ‘Primary’ databases: Ovid (MEDLINE, Embase, APA PsycINFO) 
  • Note use article type filter "Randomized Control Trial"

4. Search for next level of evidence (cohort > case control > case series > case report)

Cochrane Controlled Trials Register (for ongoing trials)

‘Primary’ databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, PsycInfo)
 

Other Resources for Searching:

• TRIP Database (Turning Research into Practice)  - convenient search of multiple 'tiers' of evidence
• Web of Science or Scopus  - Wider coverage than MEDLINE and allows easier citation tracking

For more resources, please visit Support for Clinicians & YNHH resource guide 

• Truncation - example: child* to get articles with child or children
• Quotations to find phrases - example: “post traumatic stress disorder*”
• Boolean operator OR - combine similar concepts and broaden the search - example: child* OR adolescent OR teen OR youth
• Boolean operator AND - to combine concepts and narrow the search - example: child* AND "post traumatic stress disorder*"
• Parentheses - groups search terms effectively - example: (child* OR adolescent OR teen OR youth) AND (PTSD OR “post traumatic stress disorder*” OR “posttraumatic stress disorder*) AND (intervention* OR therapy OR therapies)
• Spell out acronyms, use singular and plural forms of a word, use British spellings