CEBIS: Supporting Clinician-Led Research from Query to Publication

Bridget O’Connell, CEBIS Specialist, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust

Part of the work of the Clinical Evidence-Based Information Service (CEBIS) at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust is supporting clinicians to get their research publication-ready. There is evidence that organisations who support clinical research can have better outcomes for patients.1 There is a drive nationally to enable Nurses, Midwives and Allied Healthcare Professionals (AHPs) to undertake and publish research. 2 We knew that we received fewer enquiries from this group than Doctors. For example, last calendar year 17% of our queries were from Allied Health Professionals and 16% from Nurses, compared with 33% from Doctors. To raise our profile, we staffed a stall at a Nurses and Allied Health Professionals’ Research event to encourage these colleagues to take advantage of our services.

Here are three examples of CEBIS search expertise in action. We put these into poster form for the event to engage with participants.

Physiotherapy: Diversifying Trial Eligibility

A Physiotherapy team investigated the characteristics of participants in trials for persistent lower back pain to develop more inclusive eligibility criteria. CEBIS specialists collaborated with the team to develop a robust search strategy across five key databases (Trip, Medline, CINAHL, ProQuest, and PEDro) to find the clinical evidence for their scoping review.

Read the research: McNamee, G., Singh, G., Newton, C., Patterson, C., Bramford-Hale, K., O’Sullivan, K., O’Sullivan, P., and Woodward, H. (2025) ‘Who participates in randomised controlled trials evaluating physiotherapy interventions for persistent low back pain? A scoping review’, European Journal of Physiotherapy, pp. 1–17. doi: 10.1080/21679169.2025.2565596.

Resuscitation: Synthesising Qualitative Evidence

The Resuscitation team needed to conduct a qualitative systematic review on the experiences of patients, families, and healthcare professionals involved in Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) decision-making conversations in the United Kingdom. The review concluded that there is inconsistency in how these conversations occur, patients’ desire to be involved, and between patients’ and HCP’s views on the role of families in these conversations CEBIS searched databases PubMed, Embase, Emcare, CINAHL, and PsycInfo to find articles that described experiences of CPR decision-making conversations in the UK.

Read the research: Hartanto, M., Moore, G., Robbins, T., Suthantirakumar, R., and Slowther, A. (2023) ‘The experiences of adult patients, families, and healthcare professionals of CPR decision-making conversations in the United Kingdom: A qualitative systematic review’, Resuscitation Plus, 13, 100351. doi: 10.1016/j.resplu.2022.100351.

Palliative Care: Finding evidence gaps for researchers

Heart Failure Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) got in touch with CEBIS to find evidence to support her article on Advanced Clinical Practitioner-led Palliative Care Heart Failure Models. Her area of interest was telehealth and the impact on patient experience, healthcare costs and end of life outcomes. It was submitted to the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing and feedback from this process prompted the ACP to get back in touch with CEBIS to ensure the preferred title and topic were novel enough for publication. With CEBIS giving back the time to the ACP by taking on the searches and ensuring the research was novel, the ACP was able to write up and publish the article as desired.

Read the research: Kirkland S, Tran P, Aziz F, Banerjee P, Kuehl M. Advanced Clinical Practitioner-led Palliative Care Heart Failure Model within the National Health Service: A Prospective Study of Patient Experience, Healthcare Costs and End-of-life Outcomes. Eur J Cardiovasc Nurs. 2026 Mar 3:zvag058. doi: 10.1093/eurjcn/zvag058. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 41773302.

Through promotion at targeted events, CEBIS works to promote and support Nurses, Midwives and AHPs to get their research completed and published.

Footnotes

  1. Jonker L, Fisher SJ. The correlation between National Health Service trusts’ clinical trial activity and both mortality rates and care quality commission ratings: a retrospective cross-sectional study. Public Health. 2018 Apr;157:1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2017.12.022. Epub 2018 Feb 10. PMID: 29438805. ↩︎
  2. Palmer, S., Coad, J., Gamble, J. et al. Nursing, midwifery, and allied health professions research capacities and cultures: a survey of staff within a university and acute healthcare organisation. BMC Health Serv Res 23, 647 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09612-3 ↩︎