Outline for Session 5

Finding Studies to Answer Your Questions

Demonstration on library databases

· Using electronic databases to retrieve literature

· Using Methodological Filters to refine your search

· Finding Systematic Reviews, Randomized Control Trials, and Quasi-Experiments

The objective of this week's class is to familiarize students with the tools and strategies they need to search for evidence, in the form of systematic reviews and primary studies, to answer PICO questions related to effectiveness of intervention or prevention.

We will start by demonstrating the conversion of PICO terms to search terms, using the search planning sheet you will be using for the next assignment.  In order to maximize the number of possible articles found with your search, you will need to generate synonyms for your terms. Synonyms are combined using OR, to find articles which reference any of the terms.  "OR" is a Boolean Logic term which  finds the union of sets. In reality, this is usually an iterative process, where new terms are discovered over time and used to revise the search.

We will make use of search histories.  First, we will search with terms that define the clinical population, then we will conduct a second search with terms that define the presenting problem.  We will then move on to searches for interventions, comparisons, and outcomes.  Not all of these searches may be required, in particular, if you are only looking for effectiveness of one intervention rather than comparing it to another, you might be able to eliminate the comparison terms, and if your outcome is just a restatement of the problem terms, then you may not need a separate search for that.  When all of these searches are complete, we will use the search history function in EBSCO advanced search to add the prior searches together using "AND", the Boolean Logic term, to find the intersections of all of the searches.

When there are many articles published on a given topic, it is often easier to use methods terminology to narrow your choices.  So, if you are lucky enough to find hundreds of articles which mention all of your PICO terms, we can narrow the focus by using methodological terms to locate only those studies which use designs appropriate to effectiveness questions.  These terms will be run as a separate search, and then added to the PICO search results to produce a list of references that are likely to answer your PICO question. We will search first for systematic reviews using methodological locators for systematic reviews, as we know that they are the best source of information for answering effectiveness questions.  If we don't find acceptable references after scanning the titles and abstracts of articles, we will need to search for primary studies, using methodological terms related to effectiveness of interventions or prevention programs.  These two sets of methods terms are identical, except that the word "prevent" is added to the intervention effectiveness terms using AND for prevention studies.

Next, we will learn how to select library databases using the EBSCO portal.  One nice thing about the EBSCO portal is that it hosts several good databases, including ERIC, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Medline, and you can search these databases simultaneously.  One disadvantage to exclusive reliance on EBSCO is that it will not be available to you through the University of Utah if you are not a student, field instructor, or faculty.  However, many public libraries, including the Salt Lake City public library, access EBSCO through Pioneer Library (http://pioneer-library.org), although PsycINFO and CINAHL are not included.

Because many students' searches will result either in too many or too few "hits," we'll cover some tips on how to either decrease or increase the number of articles you find through your search. Finally, we’ll demonstrate ways to conduct the same search using Google Scholar.

We are meeting EARLY this morning, which means that I will not be at my best unless I stayed up all night. I will do my best to be coherent!!! Please be sure to bring your laptops, because I would like you to work in small groups after the demonstrations so that you can get some practice while I am around to help!