DNP Health News / Policy / Organizations

What does it mean to refer to a resource by the terms PRIMARY and SECONDARY?

~ PRIMARY resource:  the author(s) collected or created the data / research presented

Examples: original research published in a peer reviewed journal, dissertation

Where?  PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, Scholar, Government data (e.g. CDC web site and publications e.g. MMWR)

~ SECONDARY resource: the author(s) summarized, analyzed or synthesized the research of others

Examples: literature review, systematic review, organization web sites (see link below), clinical point of care tools

Where?  Databases listed above, Google, Wikipedia, Up to Date, Dynamed

PubMed

PubMed comprises more than 25 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.