Clinical research basics 2

1. 1
Clinical Research Basics
Mohamed Fahmy Doheim
M.B.B.Ch Candidate

2. Previous Session
1- Introduction
Medical
Research Types!
Science?
Research?
Why do research?

3. Previous Session

4. Medical Literature :
What, where and
how?

5. What?
• Medical literature is the scientific
literature of medicine: articles in
journals and texts in books devoted
to the field of medicine

6. 6
Literature review
• It prevents the duplication of work that has
been done before.
• It helps the researchers to find out what others
have found and reported on the problem.
• It helps the researcher to become more familiar
with the various types of methodology that
could be used in the study.
• It should provide convincing arguments why
this particular research project is needed.

7. What’s the difference?
• Journals ( Peer reviewed vs. not?)
• Text books
• Databases
• Publishers?

8. Common databases/
Research engines
• PubMed (website) from Medline!
• Google scholar
• Web of science (ISI) (Via EKB)
• Scopus (Via EKB)
• Embase ( No free access)
• Cochrane
• WHO Global Health Library (GHL)

9. PubMed
 Free resource developed and maintained by the National
Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S.
National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National
Institutes of Health (NIH).
 More than 5,400 worldwide journals in 60 languages.
 Covers 1947 to the present with some older material.

10. PubMed
• How to open PubMed?
In your browser, type
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

11. PubMed interface

12. Searching using Topic
keywords

13. PubMed filters

14. Exporting items from
PubMed

15. The abstract page

16. Boolean operators
• George Boole
(1815 –1864)
was an English mathematician
and philosopher.
Invented Boolean logic which is the basis
of modern digital computers.
• -AND
• -OR
• -NOT

17. AND

18. OR

19. NOT

20. TRUNCTION
• Truncation is a searchable shortened
form of a word.
• Example:
– adolescen* will include
• adolescence
• adolescent
• adolescents, etc…

21. Example
• We seach about Articles which mention The
safety and efficacy of the combination of
daclatasvir, asunaprevir, and beclabuvir in the
treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus
(Daclatasvir OR BMS-790052 OR Daklinza OR DCV)
AND (Asunaprevir OR BMS-650032 OR Sunvepra
OR ASV) AND (Beclabuvir OR BMS-791325 OR
BCV).

22. Try yourself
• We want to know the effects of
eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) in
depression.
What's your proposed search strategy?

23. 23
Steps of developing a
research proposal
• Title of the research
• Background information and statement of the research problem
(scientific justification for the study)
• Research objectives
• Research hypothesis
• Methodology
• Work plan
• Plan for utilization and dissemination of research results
• References
• Budget preparation
• Annexes