Health Science Literacy

Health literacy is the ability to obtain, read, understand and use health care information to make appropriate health decisions and follow instructions for treatment. Health literacy thus encompasses skills both required for clinicians to practice evidence based medicine, as for researchers and policy makers to design sound research and establish proper guidelines and recommendations.

This handbook is a practical manual and instruction for asking case relevant questions, searching for relevant literature, critically reflecting on research, drawing conclusions, communicating the evidence, reporting formally and implementing the evidence. The book provides information and tips, along with interactive media on the online learning platform Sofia.

The authors clarify basic principles of research methodology and elaborate on different study designs. They provide tips and tricks for searching scientific databases PubMed and Web of Science. They explain the risk of bias assessment and levels of evidence to draw conclusions for both clinical application (critical appraised topics) and scientific reports (systematic reviews). They also describe tools for reference management. Thus the book is ideally suited for students, clinicians, researchers and lecturers active in health care.