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Katharine Holmes Academic Liaison Librarian [email protected] The literature search cycle

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Katharine HolmesAcademic Liaison Librarian

[email protected]

The literature search cycle

Why are search skills important?

For students

• Search skills help you find good quality research articles • Saves you time and effort• Underpins all your assignments and research

For practitioners

• All the protocols and guidelines used in healthcare are based on evidence

• You will need search skills to be able to stay up-to-date with the latest research

• Search skills are important in your CPD

Topic or research question

Search planSources

Search words

Search results

Review and refineEvaluate and record

The literature search cycle

Systematic searching

Searching for a systematic literature review should be:

• Systematic, rigorous, objective and unbiased

• More structured than normal searching

• Auditable, transparent and repeatable

• Comprehensive - including standard databases, other specialist journals, guidelines, SLRS stc.

Tips for getting started

1. Do not choose your articles until you have conducted a systematic search - choosing articles first and then constructing a retrospective search strategy is very difficult.

2. Pre-searching your topic may help you develop it into a full research question.

3. A fully developed research question may require revision as your search develops.

Advanced literature search kit

Bite-sized help to guide you through the literature review

process

• Links to previous dissertations

• UCS thesaurus of nursing and health search terms

• Links to sample systematic searches using Cinahl and BNI

• PEO and PICO help

• Help finding full-text

Planning your search

Selecting appropriate search terms is the key to successful

literature searching.

Without meaningful search terms you are unlikely to find

useful articles. Rubbish in = rubbish out.

Keep things simple - do over complicate your search withunnecessary search words.

Defining your search words

Avoid the use of vague words and phases e.g.

• the role of • the impact of• the affect on• problems with• the implications of • the link between

These terms are superfluous and not normally helpfulin searching.

Defining your search words

Identify the key concepts or main ideas in your topic or researchquestion. Select words or phrases that describe these.

Research Question

Impacting on the nurse-patient relationship in the context of involuntary admission in an acute mental health setting

Defining your search words

Identify the key concepts or main ideas in your topic or research

question. Select words or phrases that describe these.

Research Question

Impacting on the nurse-patient relationship in the

context of involuntary admission in an acute mental health

setting.

Finding other search terms

For each concept try to think of as many similar or related words as possible e.g. for diet you could also use the following:

Nutrition

Food

Nourishment

Meals

Malnutrition

Malnourishment

Tip! Try using an online thesaurus.

Synonyms and related words

To search comprehensively, you should use various types of search terms e.g.

Synonyms (similar words)

e.g. for head also use skull or cranial

for compassion also use empathy

for anxiety also use stress

Antonyms (opposite words)

e.g. for success also use failure

for nutrition also use malnutrition

Alternative search words

Acronyms and abbreviations e.g. use CT for computed tomography

use QOL for quality of life

Alternative spellingse.g. use anemia or anaemia

use pediatrics or paediatrics

Broader & narrower terms e.g. use depression for mental health e.g. use education for teaching

Boolean operators

Boolean operators are very useful for broadening or narrowing your search results:

AND narrows - finds all words

OR broadens - finds any word

NOT narrows - excludes a word

TIP! use AND NOT in Science Direct

Tip! It is good practice to use upper case for Boolean operators although this is not essential for every database.

Boolean - ANDAND narrows your search results by finding only those articles containing ALL words.

AND is usually used to link different concepts together.

woundNursingCancerBoth

words

Cancer AND Nursing

Boolean - OR

OR is the most commonly used operator and finds articles containing ONE or MORE terms.

OR is usually used to link similar concepts together.

OncologyCancer

Cancer OR Oncology

Bothwords

Boolean - NOTNOT is a useful way of excluding any unwanted search terms.

Here NOT finds articles about CANCER but not LUNG.

Cancer NOT Lung

Canceronly

Lung only

Both

Truncation

* Searches for alternative word endings to increase your search results:

Nurs* finds: Nurse, nurses, nursing

Child* finds: Child, children, childhood, childbirth

Radiograph* finds: Radiographer, radiographers, radiography

Manag* finds: Manager, management, managing

Midwi* finds: Midwife, midwives, midwifery

Phrase searching

There are several ways to search for phrases:

Pain management

May not find words as a fixed string - words may become dissociated from each other and appear within different parts of the citation. Therefore, not all articles found may be relevant.

Pain N2 management

Finds “pain” within two words of “management” - it could also find “management of severe pain” as word order is disregarded.

“Pain management”

Finds this phrase only as a fixed string which can be limiting.

Proximity (NEAR) operator

These operators find search terms within a specified number of words from each other (word order is disregarded).

Cinahl nurs* N2 educat*

Proquest nurs* N/2 educat*

ScienceDirect nurs* W/2 educat*

These searches would find any of the following phrases: • Education for nursing • Educating public health nurses

• Nursing education • Education for professional nursing

Other search tips

• Use advanced search for the best search options

• Do not limit search results to full-text

• Adapt your search strategy according to the database e.g. Cochrane

• Reference searching - searching the reference list of one relevant article to find other related articles

A-Z of e-Journals• Helps navigate to an alternative collection to locate full-text

• Identifies specialist journals not included in standard databases - the equivalent of “hand searching”

Refine your search results

Limit your search results using the refine options offered by the database.

Refine options may include:

• Year of publication

• Academic or peer-reviewed journals

• Articles in selected journals

• Primary research studies (TIP! SLRs are secondary sources)

Evaluate your search results

Check if your search plan needs revising to improve your results:

• Do the results look relevant? Do you need to remove or add any extra search terms?

• Do you need to tweak your use of search techniques e.g. Boolean operators, truncation or proximity operators?

• Are there any more appropriate databases or other sources you could be searching? 

Make your final selection of articles

Scan your refined search results for titles of interest, examine the abstracts and judge whether the articles match your inclusion and exclusion criteria:

• Do the papers relate to the UK or, if not, are they applicable anyway?

• Do the papers have the appropriate research methodology and design?

• Do the settings, population, interventions/exposure and outcomes match your specified criteria?

Present your search results

• It is good practice to present your search results in the form of a table or matrix.

• This makes it much easier for you to describe exactly how you conducted your search.

• It also serves as an audit trail enabling others to replicate the process and see how you arrived at your results.

• A matrix helps you to repeat the same search at a later date if

necessary.

Finding full-text

If the article is not immediately available try the following:

•Use the 360 link if using a Proquest database

•Check the A-Z of e-journals

•Google the title of the article - it maybe freely available

•Your RCN membership may give access full-text

•Your Athens login may give access to the journal you require

•If all else fails you can request the article

Resource requestsJournal article requests need a signature and must be returned to the Library in person or by post (they cannot be scanned and emailed)

•Allow up to 2 working days for documents to be electronically delivered.

•Allowances may be exceeded if students wish to pay personally:

• First year undergraduate (Level 4) - 5 requests free of charge (request forms must be countersigned by course tutor)

• Second year undergraduate (Level 5) - 5 requests free of charge• Final year undergraduate (Level 6) - 10 requests free of charge• Taught Postgraduate - 10 requests free of charge• Research postgraduate - 20 requests free of charge• Staff - 20 requests free of charge

Top tips• Do not select articles before you have completed a systematic search

• Your PEO/PICO descriptor strings may need re-organising in your search strategy

• The database will not select your final articles

• Google article title for full-text before placing a request

• Do not just choose articles that support your argument or that are one type of research design

• Do not limit to articles about the UK – usually this is not helpful