Using Online Databases to Guide Practice and Research

Abstract

As tools for human service practitioners and researchers, online databases to locate evaluation literature are becoming increasingly useful. This article uses a clinical problem (concern about the effectiveness of electroconvuisive shock therapy for depressed persons), and a researcher's problem (planning a study to evaluate group treatment for child abusers), to illustrate logic of online searches for evaluation literature. New techniques for synthesizing many studies may require sweeping changes in how abstracts are formulated for bibliographic databases. Study synthesis techniques suggest ways to code studies to describe treatment method, client type, outcome measures, indices of study quality, and indices of treatment effect size. By replacing abstracts with such coded information, evaluation studies could be synthesized continuously for their program and policy implications.

Key Words:

• Human services literature
• online literature searching
• meta-analysis
• study synthesis
• synthesizing evaluation research