PHTH 526

 

 

Image credit:
Adapted by Charlotte Beck and Suzan Zagar, UBC Library from the EBM Generator. 2012 [online]. Levels of Evidence Pryamid. Available from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~biomed/resources.htmld/guides/images/pyramid5_sliced_20.gif [accessed on 13 February 2012].

Types of Questions (domains)	Types of Studies
Therapy	RCT
Diagnosis	Prospective
Etiology/Harm	Cohort, case series
Prognosis	Cohort, case series
Prevention	RCT
Qualitative	Grounded theory, phenomenology

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews: Search the abstracts (free) at The Cochrane Library. Find the fulltext at Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) and click on the fulltext review, not the UBC elink button PubMed clinical queries (Tutorial) Subject specialized: PEDRO OTSeeker SpeedBITE Critiquing Systematic Reviews Database of Systematic Reviews (DARE)

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Image credit:
Adapted by Charlotte Beck and Suzan Zagar, UBC Library from the EBM Generator. 2012 [online]. Levels of Evidence Pryamid. Available from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~biomed/resources.htmld/guides/images/pyramid5_sliced_20.gif [accessed on 13 February 2012].

Meta search engines

• Healthcare: PubMed, SUMSearch, TRIP medical database
• General: Google and Google Scholar
  *Note: login via UBC Library to access fulltext

Finding clinical trials:

• International clinical trials
• UK clinical trials

Subject databases (core for Rehabilitation Sciences)

• Medline - either Medline Ovid or PubMed
  *Note: login via UBC Library to access fulltext
• CINAHL (EBSCO)
• Embase (Ovid)

PsycINFO (EBSCO)	For psychologically related issues, including motivation
ERIC (EBSCO)	Good for materials relating to education and school aged children
Sportdiscus (EBSCO)	Sports, exercise, sports physiology
Compendex Engineering Village	Equipment, electronic modalities

Image credit:
Adapted by Charlotte Beck and Suzan Zagar, UBC Library from the EBM Generator. 2012 [online]. Levels of Evidence Pryamid. Available from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~biomed/resources.htmld/guides/images/pyramid5_sliced_20.gif [accessed on 13 February 2012].

Efficient searching follows a structured process:

   

This work AND animation, by Beck, Charlotte and Zagar, Suzan, identified by UBC Library, is free of known copyright restrictions.

		P		Patient/Population		Who or What?
		I		Intervention		How?
		C		Comparison		What is the main alternative (if appropriate)
		O		Outcome		What are you trying to accomplish, measure, improve, effect?

 

  The PICO blocks help build a structured, methodological and organized search.

Use this PICO worksheet to analyze your search strategy:

Match PICO concepts to search words: subject headings and/or keywords.

Example PICOstatement:
Among (P) stroke patients does the use of (I) Wii improve (O) balance?

		Concept	MeSH	Keyword
	P	Stroke	Stroke	stroke* CVA* cerebrovascular accident* Cerebral infarction*
	I	Wii	Video games	Wii videogame* virtual reality*
	O	Balance	Postural balance	balance equilibrium

(aka MeSH, descriptors, controlled vocabulary) pull together synonyms and variant spellings and grammar to a single search term or phrase. Identify Subject Heading by using the database thesaurus or headings list. The search engine looks for a match of the subject heading in the subject heading or descriptor field in the record. Additional tools include being able to explode, add subheadings, or limit by the focus or main point.

(aka key terms) can be any word or phrase. The search engine looks for a match of the same combination of letters (generally) in the title and abstract in bibliographic databases, and on the website or fulltext in Google. In some databases, notably Pubmed, Medline(Ovidsp) and Embase(Ovidsp), the search engine automatically tries to map the keyword to a subject heading. Truncation and wild cards assist with variant spellings and grammar.

Build a search strategy of separate result sets for each concept(s)

Booleans
Form a more detailed explanation.

Example:
babies OR infants finds articles that include either or both concepts
Vitamin C AND colds finds articles with both these concepts

 

This work AND animation, by Zagar, Suzan, identified by UBC Library, is free of known copyright restrictions.

Limit as appropriate:

• Population characteristics: gender, age
• Publication descriptors: date, language, design

• Save search history
• Set up alerts