What are Evidence Maps? An Evidence Map is a searchable online tool designed to assist clinicians with making evidence-based decisions. Each Evidence Map highlights the importance of the three components of evidence-based practice—external scientific evidence, clinical expertise, and client perspectives—and provides the latest information related to the assessment, treatment, and service delivery for various communication disorders. How are Evidence Maps used by clinicians? Because speech-language pathologists and audiologists often do not have time to stay up-to-date with the latest clinical research, they must look to available resources that synthesize that research. The Evidence Maps provide clinicians with a quick synopsis of guidelines and systematic reviews pertaining to speech-language pathology and audiology clinical topics.
What is external scientific evidence? External scientific evidence refers to the results of research that has been conducted in a specific area of treatment, assessment, or service delivery. Although evidence may be obtained from individual studies, only evidence-based guidelines and systematic reviews are included in the Evidence Maps. What is clinical expertise? Clinical expertise refers to the experience, education, and clinical skills of the treating clinician and/or clinical experts. Consensus-based statements from guidelines and ASHA policy documents are included in this section of the Evidence Maps. What are client perspectives? Client perspectives refer to the individual perspective, unique concerns, expectations, and/or values that the client and family bring to the clinical encounter. This section includes research from guidelines and systematic reviews.
What are guidelines? Guidelines are documents developed by a group of experts that include recommendations intended to optimize the delivery of services to a select population under specific clinical circumstances. Guidelines may include recommendations that are evidence-based and/or consensus-based. Evidence-based recommendations are established in consideration of the research literature using a rigorous, unbiased, and transparent process. These recommendations are classified in the Evidence Maps as External Scientific Evidence. Consensus-based recommendations are decided upon by experts in the field and are classified in the Evidence Maps as Clinical Expertise. What are systematic reviews? Systematic reviews are documents that provide a comprehensive, unbiased synthesis of the scientific literature on a given topic. Specific methods are employed to search for and appraise the quality of the studies included in systematic reviews. The author(s) formulate conclusions from the entire body of available research. What are practice policy documents? ASHA practice policy documents, which are written for and by ASHA members and approved by ASHA governance, contain detailed guidance on the responsibilities, ethics, and scopes of practice for speech-language pathologists and audiologists.
What information does ASHA provide about each article? For each article in an Evidence Map, ASHA provides the citation; type of document (e.g., guideline, systematic review, or ASHA policy document); description of the document, including the population(s) studied; specific assessments/interventions/service delivery considerations addressed; intended target audience; and specific recommendations or conclusions pertaining directly to speech-language pathology or audiology practices. Depending on the type of document, the description may also include levels of evidence or evidence ratings provided by the authors or guideline development group. What is the difference between a conclusion and a recommendation? A conclusion summarizes the findings of a systematic review and discusses the interpretation of the findings beyond what is reported statistically. Systematic reviews provide conclusions about the body of scientific evidence and describe the extent to which various assessment, treatment, or service delivery approaches are supported by the evidence, but typically stop short of making specific recommendations for clinical practice. A recommendation states what should or should not be done in clinical practice. Guidelines provide recommendations based on the body of evidence or based on consensus from experts in the field. What are evidence ratings, and how should I interpret them? Oftentimes, the guideline development group will provide a hierarchical rating system to highlight the quality of the evidence and the strength of the recommendation provided. The ratings are designed to help clinicians determine how much confidence they can place in a particular recommendation or set of recommendations. A number of rating systems are currently in use, some of which base a recommendation solely on study design whereas others incorporate additional factors, such as quality of the evidence, resource utilization, benefits, and harms. When applicable, the evidence grading scheme and the corresponding descriptors for each rating are provided. What if I want more information about an included article? Each article has an accompanying link to more detailed information about the article (i.e., Read ASHA's Article Summary) as well as information needed to access the full document (i.e., Go to Article). How do I cite this information? How you cite will depend on what information you are referring to from the Evidence Maps. If you can access the original full text article, it is best practice to cite the full-text since it is the original source of information. Original publication information can be found at the top of an article summary in the Maps. If you are referring to information from an Evidence Map summary only (i.e., you are unable to access the original full-text), you would cite it as a database with original, proprietary content. You can review the APA style guide for more information. Here is an example:
Where do these articles come from? ASHA's National Center for Evidence-Based Practice in Communication Disorders (N-CEP) systematically conducts searches and vets all pertinent guidelines and systematic reviews before including them in an Evidence Map. All documents are included for informational purposes only, and their inclusion does not imply that ASHA endorses or agrees with any particular conclusions or recommendations. Does ASHA include primary research from individual studies? No. Given the frequency with which new studies become available, it is not feasible to comprehensively identify and review all of the relevant research articles to present in an Evidence Map. There are, however, several sources to find primary research. For example, speechBITE offers a database of appraised intervention studies (e.g., randomized controlled trials) across speech-language pathology topics. Does ASHA include all evidence-based guidelines and systematic reviews as external scientific evidence? Unfortunately, many guidelines are developed with questionable methodological rigor and/or reflect the bias(es) of the authors. Also, many reviews use a narrative format; in order to be considered truly systematic, reviews must use a transparent and reproducible process. To address these shortcomings, N-CEP applies a specific set of criteria to determine if a document should be included as external scientific evidence. All guidelines must receive an overall rating of Highly Recommended or Recommended with Provisos and meet a minimum threshold for methodological rigor based on the widely adopted framework known as the AGREE framework. N-CEP includes all applicable systematic reviews and provides an appraisal of methodological rigor based on six quality indicators. What are AGREE ratings? AGREE, also known as the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation, is a framework consisting of 23 criteria across six domains (e.g., rigor of development, stakeholder involvement) designed to evaluate the applicability, currency, comprehensiveness, and methodological rigor of clinical guidelines. N-CEP staff review and score each guideline based on modified AGREE criteria and categorize the guideline as Highly Recommended, Recommended with Provisos, or Not Recommended based on the AGREE scoring system. Only guidelines rated as Highly Recommended or Recommended with Provisos are included in the Evidence Maps. What are quality indicator ratings? Quality indicator ratings are ratings assigned by N-CEP staff to indicate the methodological quality of an included systematic review (e.g., search strategy described in sufficient detail for replication, quality assessments that are reproducible). The ratings are provided so that clinicians can more easily evaluate the quality of the review, including the validity of the findings, as well as make clinical judgments about the applicability of the findings to their clients. Why is there no evidence for some sections of an Evidence Map? In some cases, no guidelines or evidence-based systematic reviews are available for a given treatment, assessment, or service delivery model. ASHA will update sections of an Evidence Map as information becomes available. How often are Evidence Maps updated? New guidelines and systematic reviews are published every day. N-CEP intends to keep the Evidence Maps as current as possible and will publish new documents to an existing Evidence Map on an ongoing basis.
How can I apply an Evidence Map to my clinical practice? The first step in applying evidence to a clinical decision is to ask an answerable clinical question. One widely used approach to framing a clinical question is PICO; the acronym stands for
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