The resources found in the 6S Pyramid contain evidence that will help you answer foreground questions (queries that bring together multiple concepts related to a specific clinical situation or research topic).
[Adapted from DiCenso, Bayley and Haynes (2009). ACP Journal Club. Editorial: Accessing pre-appraised evidence: Fine-tuning the 5S model into a 6S model. Annals of Internal Medicine, 151(6):JC3-2, JC3-3.]
The 6S pyramid is arranged in a hierarchy, with the different levels outlined and colour-coded to the right of this page
Use the concepts identified in your PICO or PS Question (found in the Forming Questions tab) to come up with approriate search terms, remembering:
A piece of evidence's ability to guide clinical action increases as you move up the pyramid.
Topics become more specific as you move down the pyramid.
Integrating information from the lower levels of the hiearchy with individual patient records, systems represent the ideal source of evidence for clinical decision-making.
Summaries are regularly updated clinical guidelines or textbooks that integrate evidence-based information about specific clinical problems.
Synopses of syntheses, summarize the information found in systematic reviews. By drawing conclusions from evidence at lower levels of the pyramid, these synopses often provide sufficient information to support clinical action.
Commonly referred to as a systematic review, a synthesis is a comprehensive summary of all the evidence surrounding a specific research question.
Synopses of single studies summarize evidence from high-quality studies.
Studies represent unique research conducted to answer specific clinical questions.
The CINAHL, Medline, EMBASE, PsycInfo, and Pubmed databases can be searched using the Clinical Queries filter, limiting your results to specific clinical research areas: Therapy, Prognosis, Review, Qualitative, and Causation (Etiology)
For further information and tips on using the Clinical Queries filter, please visit the following links:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It was taken in-part from the McMaster University guide titled "Resources for Evidence-Based Practice", last accessed August 16, 2023.