There are many publication types in the health research field. The following tabs describe the most common types encountered.
Grey literature includes any literature that has not been published through traditional means. It is often excluded from large databases and other mainstream sources. These include white papers, government reports, clinical trials, conferences, statistics, theses and dissertations, documents from professional organizations, and regulatory information for drugs and medical devices.
Click here for a comprehensive list of grey literature document types.
Type of research that studies new tests and treatments and evaluates their effects on human health outcomes. Participants are prospectively assigned and submitted to intervention, placebo or control groups.
Detailed report of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient. Often describe an unusual or novel occurrence.
Clinical reviews, also known as updates, are the process of retrospectively examining potential errors or gaps in medical care, aiming for future practice improvement. Clinical reviews differ from systematic reviews and meta-analysis in the sense that they discuss a topic more broadly and make recommendations based on the expertise of the reviewer rather than comprehensive review of the literature. It also tends to be more applicable to local situations.
Systematic reviews are "a type of study that synthesises research that has been conducted on a particular topic. (...) To minimise bias, systematic reviews utilise a predefined search strategy to identify and appraise all available published literature on a specific topic" (Caldwell & Bennett, 2020, para. 1).
Meta-analysis are studies that combine "statistical results from two or more existing studies. When multiple studies are addressing the same problem or question, it’s to be expected that there will be some potential for error. Most studies account for this within their results. A meta-analysis can help iron out any inconsistencies in data, as long as the studies are similar" (Elsevier, n.d. para. 6).
It is important to be able to critically evaluate the quality of the information you find.
For an interactive tutorial on assessing the quality of health information found on the Web, view the tutorial Evaluating Internet Health Information from the National Library of Medicine.