Transcript Literature searching

Literature searching
IM&T: Library Services
Basic searching techniques
• Define your subject area as precisely as
possible
• Decide which sources to use
• Obtain your information - journal
references, books, full text from Web
• Critically appraise the information you
have
• Apply it.
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Literature searching using the databases
Structuring the search
• Who?: define your patient or population –
the clinical condition, age, sex, situation
• What?: drug or other therapy; diagnostic
test; education programme
• Why?: what are you trying to achieve e.g.
prevention, better quality of life; or to avoid
e.g. side effects, mortality
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Literature searching using the databases
PICO
• Patient / Population
• Intervention
• Comparison
• Outcome
SPICE
• Setting
• Population
• Intervention
• Comparison
• Evaluation
Searching electronically
Combining search concepts
• Boolean or logical operators are used to
combine subject terms to widen or
narrow down your search
• The most common operators are
“OR” and “AND”
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Literature searching using the databases
Searching electronically
• OR broadens out your search
Myocardial
infarction
OR
Heart attack
Myocardial infarction OR heart attack will find records that
contain either the words “myocardial infarction” or the
words “heart attack”
OR increases the number of references found
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Literature searching using the databases
Searching electronically
• AND retrieves records in which both search
concepts appear
Heart attack
AND
Aspirin
Heart attack AND Aspirin will retrieve only those records
in which both the words “heart attack” and the word
“Aspirin” appear
AND reduces the number of references found.
Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust: Library Services
Literature searching using the databases
Searching electronically
Truncation - symbol is either * or $
• It is most often used to select both the singular and plural of
the same word.
• If you enter * at the end of a word or part word, all words
beginning with the entered search term are retrieved
e.g alcohol* will retrieve alcohol, alcoholic and alcoholism
• If you enter paediatric*1 it will retrieve paediatric and
paediatrics but not paediatrician
Truncation can only be used with free text or textword
searching, it cannot be used with controlled vocabulary
Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust: Library Services
Literature searching using the databases
Searching electronically
Phrase searching
NHS Evidence healthcare databases:
If you wish to search for a phrase enclose the words in
quote marks:
e.g. “coronary heart disease”
Other resources may automatically treat two words
together as a phrase.
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Literature searching using the databases
Database access
• NHS Evidence
• www.evidence.nhs.uk
• Click on ‘Journals and databases’, then on
‘Healthcare databases advanced search’.
You will be asked to log in with your Athens
account before you search.
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Literature searching using the databases
Healthcare databases: specialist
• AMED: Complementary medicine and allied health
professions
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BNI: British Nursing Index
CINAHL: American, nursing and allied health professions
Health Business Elite: non-clinical health management
HMIC: UK health and social care management and policy
PsycINFO: psychology and related fields
Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust: Library Services
Literature searching using the databases
Healthcare databases: general
• EMBASE: European based. Covers across all health
information but strong on drug research and
pharmacology
• Medline:
American, the largest of the databases.
Covers the whole spectrum of health information
Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust: Library Services
Literature searching using the databases
Handout
Literature searching handouts:
http://www.library.northants.nhs.uk/Con
tent/Training/Literature_Searching/index
.jsp