This presentation will show you how to construct your search strategy and how to search databases in order to find the relevant literature.

1. Naglaa F.A. Youssef (PhD)
Lecturer
Faculty of Nursing
Cairo University
Introduction to search the databases to
find relevant literature

2.  First step of conducting a research
is a literature review.
 First step of doing a literature review
is to find relevant literature.
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You do not need to
read everything have
been written about
your research topic.
But you should be wise
in searching and
selecting what you
should read to write
your literature review.

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 Definition of literature review
 List of common databases
 What is a search strategy?
 Why do you need a search strategy?
 How to develop a search strategy?
 Steps of searching databases
 Using PICO to develop a search strategy
 Example of research question using PICO
 Example of searching database: MEDLINE

5. Definition of literature review
 A literature review is a survey of everything that has been
written about a particular topic, theory, or research question.
 A well-structured literature search is the most effective and
efficient way to locate sound evidence on the subject you
are researching.
Where can evidence be found?5

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7. A study aimed to evaluate the
effectiveness of massage
therapy for neck and shoulder
pain.
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What did the author do to find the relevant literature to
achieve his research aim?

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10.  For the literature review, you can use a specific search strategy to
search online databases (e.g. MEDLINE® and Cochrane) using
different key words that represent the research question, followed by
evaluation of the bibliographies of relevant articles to find other
relevant reference.
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11. List of common databases
 Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval
System Online (MEDLINE),
 Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied
Health Literature (CINAHL),
 Cochran library,
 Psychological Information (PsychInfo)
 OvidSP
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A database is a
system intended
to organize,
store, and
retrieve large
amounts of data
easily.

12. What is a search strategy?
 A search strategy is the planned and structured
organization of terms used to search a database. The
search strategy will also indicate how these terms are
combined in order to retrieve optimal results.
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Why do you need a search strategy?
You need a search strategy to:
• Perform the most effective
and simple searches to find
valuable references with
minimal effort.

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How to develop a search strategy?
• AND: narrow,
• OR: expend, broaden
• NOT: narrow
Depression AND anxiety Or stress
Self-care OR daily of living OR self-management NOT health
education
Boolean operators
• Use parentheses to group related terms
• Clarify search order
• Ex. Quality of life AND(well-being OR satisfaction).
Nesting
• Use symbol to present one or more characters.
• Find alternate spelling
Ex. asterisk‘’*’’ or dollar ‘’$’’
Truncation
• Is called subject heading, standardised terms in the
discipline.
• Is specific to each database
Controlled vocabularies
Four basic search strategies

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Boolean operators
Aerobic
exercises
Relaxation
OR
Expend search

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Boolean operators
Aerobic
exercises
Relaxation
AND
Limited search
involved both terms

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Boolean operators
Walk
NOT
Limited search
Not involve this type of exercise -- walk
Relaxation
Aerobic
exercises

18. Nesting
 Quality of life AND(well-being OR satisfaction).
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Quality of life
SatisfactionWell-being

19. Truncation
 Use symbols such as signs asterisk‘’*’’ or dollar ‘’$’’
 Dollar symbol to find words that is written differently in British and
American English
 such as behavio$r to find behaviour and behavior
 Asterisk‘’*’’ symbol to find singular/plural forms of words and variant
endings: For example, typing therap* into Medline's
 therapy, therapies, therapist or therapists
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20. Controlled vocabularies
 Is called subject heading,
 Are standardised terms in the discipline.
 Is specific to each database. Each databases
has a local lingo
Some things go by different names depending
on where you are. Then know the local lingo or
idiom or phrase.
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22. Steps of doing a literature search
1. Asking an answerable review question:
1. Select a topic area of review (cardiac disease)
2. Narrowing the topic area (myocardia infarction)
3. Use PICO/PICOT/PEOT format
4. Relating the review question to the research design (type of design that can answer
your question) (RCT, longitudinal study…..)
5. Know type of question [treatment, prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, causation, experience]
2. Develop and write your search strategy plan
1. State the main concepts, keywords (concept map)
2. Time and length of review (from 2005-2010)
3. Specify the inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting paper [subjects/population ,
intervention or exposure, comparative group, outcomes and type of study
design]……PICO/PICOT/PEOT format
4. Databases/resources searching
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Research topic
Ex. Alcohol intake
• What is the impact of alcohol intake on foetus outcome?
• What are the economic and psychological implications
of alcohol intake?
• Is the use of dressing A better than dressing B in the
treatment of venous leg ulcer?
State your topic as question

24.  Developing map of keywords and subject headings
 Sources of keywords and subject headings
 Other related terms---------Dictionary
 Abstracts…key words list
 Books or other references
 Databases (this is what we will do today using PubMed)
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Brainstorm keywords

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26.  MeSH Database
MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is the U.S. National
Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary for indexing
articles for MEDLINE/PubMed. MeSH terminology provides
a consistent way to retrieve information that may use
different terminology for the same concepts.
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27.  PICO is a method of analysing the components of
a medical case. It is commonly used for
structuring literature search strategy.
P…….People
I……...Intervention
C/E….Comparison or exposure
O…….Outcomes
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Using PICO to develop a search strategy

28.  PEO:
 P: population-----older patients with cancer
 E: exposure-------cancer
 O: outcome-------patients’ satisfaction
 Note: Comparison will be with normal group
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 In children with a fever how effective is paracetamol
as compared to ibuprofen at reducing fever and
infection?
 The PICO format will be:
P……. Children with a fever
I……... Paracetamol
C……. Ibuprofen
O…….. Fever and infection
sing PICO

30.  Can do you identify PICO in this review question?
Among family members of patients with mental
health problems how effective is listening to music
as compared to standard of care in reducing
reported anxiety?
 P…….
 I……..
 C…….
 O…….
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35. Example of searching database
MEDLINE
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Self-care

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Search to find book

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56. Post-test
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Systematic searching of electronic databases [MEDLINE,
CINAHL and PsychInfo] was conducted. Google scholar was
also accessed as a public site for research. The search was
not limited to publishing time or study design in order to find all
the relevant papers up to April 2012. The following Medical
Subject Headings (MeSH) and appropriate keywords were
used separately and in combination based on ‘‘AND’’ and
‘‘OR’’ terms: health-related quality of life’, ‘quality of life’, ‘well-
being’, ‘functional status’, ‘health status’,‘social support', 'social
network', 'psychosocial support', 'support system', 'perceived
social support', 'liver disease', 'liver cirrhosis', and 'hepatitis'.

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infectious disease in Africa

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1. Understand the
question
2. Organise your
thought
3. Identify suitable
search engines
4. run a search
5. Limit and combine
keywords
6. Access full text
7. Keep records
8. Writing up findings
To do literature search follow these steps

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