Dietetics & Nutrition

Class Slides May 15, 2025

Resources and Handouts

Evaluation of Resources and Critical Appraisal

Sept 11th - lecture:

Please review the following content prior to our class together Wednesday, Sept 11th @ 4:00 PM 

Medline (Ovid) - ~20 minutes of videos: Play all videos This content will be used in class for a quiz at the beginning of class and also for FNH 398 Assignment 1.

Sept 23rd - tutorial:

Monday, Sept 23 4:00-5:00 pm via Zoom. To make the most of your time during the tutorial: i) Create an Ovid Medline account. ii) Try searching. iii) Save your search. iv) Bring your questions to this tutorial!

Recommended: use the Medline Guided Exercise https://guides.library.ubc.ca/guided_search to build your search

FAQs:

• Question: Do I need to use all of the PICO elements in my search?

Answer: No. Often, you will simply search for the P & I, or P & O. Depending on the amount of literature, you may find that your results are too small if you search for P, I and O.

• Question: Can I create a very different PICO question than the one listed in the scenario?

Scenario: You have a friend who was recently diagnosed with type II diabetes. Your friend heard that a ketogenic diet could cure diabetes, help with weight loss and provide much more energy and a sense of wellbeing.  Your friend wants to know whether the ketogenic diet is the magic bullet they’ve been looking for to improve their health.

Answer: There is some flexibility in your PICO - e.g. your friend may be a senior citizen, or pregnant, however you PICO should be based on the general scenario that has been provided.

From the Assignment description, "Using the scenario [...] as a guide, develop a clear question following the PICO framework. You do not need to include all of the components of the scenario in your PICO question; rather use this scenario to inspire a specific, searchable, and focused question. You can choose which age group, gender, life course stage (i.e. pregnant, breastfeeding, adult, senior) that is of interest for your hypothetical patient/population. There are more than one “correct” PICO questions that can emerge from this scenario, so keep your question clear and focused.

• Question: What is the best truncation symbol for searching 0 to 1 character? eg. vitamin B, vitamin B1, vitamin B2....

Answer: To find 0 to 1 character e.g. vitamin B, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, etc., use the ? symbol. To find the literature on vitamin B12, you need to use two symbols e.g. vitamin b?? Do not use the truncation symbol: * e.g. vitamin b* as it will retrieve any words starting with b!

See: https://wiki.ubc.ca/Library:Truncation_and_Wildcard_Symbols for more guidance on truncation symbols

• Question: How does the adj operator work?

Answer: "The defined adjacency operator (ADJn) retrieves records that contain search terms within a specified number (n-1) of words from each other in any order (stop-words included). To use the adjacency operator, separate your search terms with ADJ and a number from 1 to 99 as explained below:

           ADJ1     Next to each other, in any order
           ADJ2     Next to each other, in any order, up to 1 word in between...

For example, the search physician adj5 relationship retrieves records that contain the words physician and relationship with a maximum of four words in between in either direction. This particular search retrieves records containing such phrases as physician patient relationship, patient physician relationship, or relationship between cancer patient and physician.

https://ospguides.ovid.com/OSPguides/medline.htm#advanced