Evidence Based Practice 2 Searching the Literature

What you need: An Athens account via a My Athens login Your question Alternatives to all the elements of your question Some idea of the databases you wish to search A word document and memory stick OR a notepad and pen

What we will do today Review a number of databases either publically available or via an Athens account Decide on final search strategy Run your search strategy in at least one database Save the output Locate and retrieve one or two papers to read for Workshop 3

Select a database Major databases available via the Clinicians Health Channel: CINAHL plus Cochrane Library Embase Medline PsychINFO Pub Med

Apply Search Limits Use consistent limits (decide these before you start): Date Language Age Gender Human Study type (Sys RV, RCT, thesis, conf abstract) What elements of the paper you want searched Title /Abstract/ Full paper Abstract / Full paper available

Entering Search Terms Most data bases have a method for allowing you to search all endings of a word or phrase without have to enter them individually Usually this involves using either * or $ physiother* can be used to search: physiotherapist Physiotherapy physical ther* will find: physical therapist or physical therapy

Enter your search terms One at a time initially Heart Attack Myocardial infarction AMI STEMI Non-STEMI etc. Note how many papers are located for each term Terms that are alternatives for each other can then be combined with OR Heart attack OR Myocardial infarction OR AMI OR STEMI OR non-STEMI Note how many papers you now have.

Enter your search terms You will usually have a set of alternative terms for each element of your question. If you are using a PICO format this will give a set of terms combined with OR for each of the P, I, C and O. Once you have these as 4 search streams you can then use AND to combine them all- this will give you a final set of papers the database has located that meet your search terms

Remove Duplicates Most (but not all) databases will give you some way of identifying and removing duplicate papers from your list Note how many papers you have left at the end of this process.

Save your search output Some data bases will let you save the search findings and e-mail them to yourself If you have bibliographic software you can save the search in a format that can be opened by this software (eg if you have EndNote, save in an .enl format (end note library)) If no other options see if you can print the output

Search more than one database Why? Different databases cover different ranges of journals. This will give you the broadest coverage and the best chance of finding all relevant papers. Try to search all of the relevant databases

Completing your search There are other strategies that can help you find relevant papers: Search by author Search specific journals (electronic or hand search of the index)

Preparation for workshop 3 Locate a full copy of at least 2 papers that meet your search criteria and are key to your question. Get a copy of each paper and read in full (not just the abstract) Next time we will analyse these papers for bias (decide if we think they are worth consideration) and summarise what the authors have reported they did, their results and conclusions.

Questions? Email: helen.mcburney@monash.edu