This document provides guidance on advanced literature searching. It aims to teach students how to search for journal articles to provide evidence for assignments. It covers developing search strategies using PICO/PEO frameworks, identifying keywords, selecting appropriate databases, applying search techniques, and documenting searches. The document recommends starting with key databases like Cinahl, Medline, and Cochrane, and provides tips for effective searching, such as using truncation and Boolean operators. The overall goal is to equip students with the skills to systematically and comprehensively find relevant evidence from the academic literature.

1. Finding the Evidence -
Advanced Literature
Searching
Sarah Robinson
Academic Liaison
Librarian
s.robinson@uos.ac.uk
@libraryhamster

2. Aim:
• To know where to search for journal articles (that provide evidence)
• To know how to search for articles
• to understand how to create a strategy to search for articles (create a search
strategy)
• To apply your search strategy in a database to search for articles
• To know how to document/record your search
Session aim

3. Your task
• To use evidence in your assignment
To underpin care in order to improve practice

4. Where will I find evidence?
NICE
• What do the guidelines
say?
Cochrane
• What is available through
Cochrane?
Journal
articles
• Find articles to support
your arguments

5. Sources
From MySuffolk
NICE – National
Institute for Health
and Care
Excellence
Contains practice
guidance
NICE Pathways -
brings all guidance
together into one
interactive flowchart
https://www.nice.org.uk/

6. Sources
From MySuffolk
Cochrane Library Brings together High
quality evidence to
inform healthcare
practice
Includes
Trials
Systematic Reviews
Clinical answers
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/

7. Where will I find evidence?
From MySuffolk
Summon Searches for a range of content
types – books, ebooks, newspaper
articles and journals across our
sources of information (or
databases)
Cinahl Plus with Full-Text Key resource for high quality journal
articles – access via the A-Z of
eResources
Health and Medical Collection
(Proquest)
Covers all elements of health
research – access via the A-Z of
eResources
Medline Medical database, access via the A-
Z of eResources

8. 6 stages to your literature search
Finding journal articles
1
Identify
Key concepts associated with
your topic or research question
2
Select
Search terms using related
words, acronyms and
abbreviations
3
Apply
Search techniques to make
your search more effective

9. 6 stages to your literature search
Finding journal articles
4
Databases
Select the databases that
you will use
5
Refine
Using limiters available in
the database
6
Final selection
From your final selection
make any further exclusions

10. • Write out your research question
• Identify your keywords
Research question
The experiences of fathers in caring for premature babies
Step 1 – Identify the key concepts

11. Using PICO and PEO frameworks to help define
your question and develop keywords
• The PEO and PICO models are used widely in nursing and health research and
in professional practice and are strongly advocated by the NHS.
• They help you to formulate an answerable question and to identify the key
concepts within it.
• They also help you to develop your inclusion and exclusion criteria. You should
refer back to these when you are making your final selection of articles.

12. PEO – use to develop your topic and the
keywords you use
•P Population, patient or problem. Who are the users - patients, family,
practitioners or community being affected? What are the symptoms,
condition, health status, age, gender, ethnicity? What is the setting e.g.
acute care, community, mental health?
•E Exposure to a condition or illness, risk factor e.g. smoking, screening,
care, treatment, rehabilitation, service etc.
•O Outcome or themes e.g. experiences, attitudes, feelings, improvement in
condition, responsiveness to treatment, care, mobility, quality of life or daily
living.

13. PEO – use to develop your topic and the
keywords you use
•P Population, patient or problem. Adults
•E Exposure Type 2 diabetes
•O Outcome or themes Improved self management

14. PICO – includes a comparison
•P Population, patient, problem - Who are the users (patients, family, practitioners or
community) being affected? What are the symptoms, conditions, health status, age,
gender, ethnicity? Is the setting acute care, community or mental health?
•I Intervention - What is being done to or for the population - pharmacological (e.g. a
drug) or non-pharmacological (e.g. therapy, screening, surgery, service or test).
•C Comparison - Is there a control scenario or comparison element e.g. different
treatment options, a new drug versus a placebo? Often there is no comparison.
•O Outcome, expectation - What do you hope to achieve or change/measure, e.g. mortality
rates, a patient’s condition or satisfaction, reduction in referrals or length of stay.

15. PICO – apply the format to the question
•Research question: Are post-menopausal women on hormone replacement
therapy at risk of developing breast cancer?
• P Post-menopausal women
• I Hormone replacement therapy
• C Not applicable
• O Risk of developing breast cancer

16. Identify the key concepts
The experiences of fathers in caring for premature babies
Search string 1 Fathers (Population)
Search string 2 Premature (exposure)
Search string 3 Experiences (outcome)

17. For each concept many try to think of as many similar or related words as
possible
Example – my search includes the topic of diet
Any of the following keywords could be used
Step 2. Find alternative search terms to
create search strings
Diet
Dietary Food Meals
Malnutrition Nutrition Nourishment
Eating Malnourishment
Tip! Use the online thesaurus to help with this

18. To search comprehensively, you should use various types of search terms.
For example
Step 2. Synonyms and antonyms
Synonyms (similar words)
For Head Also use skull OR cranial
For dying Also use end of life OR palliative
For anxiety Also use stress OR burnout
Antonyms (opposite words)
For success Also use failure
For nutrition Also use malnutrition
For exercise Also use inactivity OR sedentary

19. To search comprehensively, you should use various types of search terms.
For example
Step 2. Acronyms and abbreviations
Acronyms and abbreviations
Use MRI For Magnetic resonance imaging
Use QOL For Quality of life
Use EOL For End of life
Alternative spellings
Use organisation OR organization
Use pediatrics OR paediatrics

20. Community Nursing OR
District nurse OR CNS OR Home Nurse OR SCPHN OR Public health OR
Community nursing OR health visitor
Finding alternative search terms

21. Treatment OR
Intervention OR Drug OR Pharmacology OR Prevention OR Relief
Finding alternative search terms

22. Find alternative search terms
The experiences of fathers in caring for premature babies
Search string 1 Fathers OR paternal OR dad OR dads
Search string 2 AND Premature OR neonatal OR preterm OR pre-
term
Search string 3 AND Experiences OR life OR lives OR living

23. Find alternative search terms
Topic is Sepsis in the elderly

24. Find alternative search terms

25. Note UK/England search string
Search string can be added
• England or Wales or Scotland or Ireland or
United Kingdom or UK or Britain or British
This will limit down articles to UK to some extent –
not perfect by any means and you may miss
useful European content

26. 1. Searching on the stem of a word (sometimes known as truncation or
Wildcard searches) uses an * to find any letter after the point the * is
placed.
2. Boolean operators – OR/AND
Step 3: Apply techniques to make searching
more effective

27. * Searches for variants of the stem of a word and will increase you search
results
Nurs* finds: Nurse, nurses, nursing
Child* finds: Child, children, childhood, childbirth
Radiograph* finds: Radiographer, radiogaphers, radiography
Manage* finds: Mange, manges, manger, managers, management, managing
Midwif* finds: Midwife, midwives, midwifery
Step 3. Apply techniques to make searching
more effective
- Truncation

28. • Boolean operators are useful for broadening or narrowing your search
results and to link keywords together
OR broadens (or widens your search) by finding any word use it within your search string
group your search words together on the same topic
using OR
AND narrows by finding all words Use it to combine your searches
most databases have AND set up for you
Step 3. Apply techniques to make searching
more effective
- Boolean operators
Tip: it is good practice to use upper case for Boolean operators

29. Fish AND Chips – Both things together, in terms of searching your article will have both
search terms
Fish OR Chips – One or the other, in terms of searching your article will have one or the other
but not necessarily both
Step 3. Apply techniques to make searching
more effective
- Boolean operators
Tip: it is good practice to use upper case for Boolean operators

30. Which of your topics can be truncated?
Which search terms are grouped together using OR?
Where do you use AND?
Activity

31. Apply truncation and search operators
The experiences of fathers in caring for premature babies
Experience* OR life OR lives OR living
AND Father* OR paternal* OR dad*
AND Prematur* OR neonat* OR preterm* OR pre-term*

32. Phrase search examples
Example search Search results
Nurse education Words may appear in different search fields (e.g. title
and abstract) so may be unrelated
“Nurse education” Nurse education (no other variations will be found)

33. Phrase searching using proximity operators
•
Database Phrase search Finds
Cinahl Nurs* N1 educat* Education of nurses
Educating nurses
Nurse educator(s)
Nurse as educator
Nurses as educators
Nursing education
Nursing educators
Proquest Nurs* N/1 educat*
Medline Nurs* NEAR/1 educat*

34. Specialist databases to use to find journal articles
Step 4. Selecting your databases
Nursing and health databases
Name Provider
Cinahl Nursing & Health Ebsco
British Nursing
Database
Nursing & Health Proquest
Nursing and Allied
Health
Nursing & Health Proquest
Medline or Pubmed Medical
Psychology Database Mental Health Proquest

35. Cinahl database
• Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health – a specialist database for nursing,
health, midwifery and radiography
• Provides access to journal articles from academic and practice journals
• Advanced search functionality enables deeper searching than Summon
• Access Cinahl through the A-Z of eResources list
Step 4. Selecting your databases

36. A primary research paper will usually describe itself as a study
Other useful terms relating to primary research include:
• Trials
• Findings
• Qualitative
• Quantitative
• Sample
• Participants
• RCTs
• Focus groups
Tip! Avoid using the word research as this is too generic or studies which is more likely to find systematic
reviews
Filtering to primary research

37. A primary research paper will usually describe itself as a study
Other useful terms relating to primary research include:
• Trial* OR Find* OR quali* or quanti* or sample* or participant* or RCTs or focus group*
Tip! Avoid using the word research as this is too generic or studies which is more likely to find systematic
reviews
Filtering to primary research

38. Limit your search results using the refine options offered by the database (these
vary)
• Year of publication – normally the last 5-10 years, or since the latest
guidance on the topic was published.
• Academic or peer-reviewed journals – in order to exclude articles from
practice journals
• Language – to exclude articles in languages other than English.
Step 5. Refine your search results –
inclusion and exclusion criteria

39. Found too many results?
• Re-run your key search string as words in the title
• Experiment with this as you may need to use the title for one of your search
strings and leave the others as keyword searches
• Remove truncation on the most common variant of a word, eg. For old* use
older
• Add in an extra search string

40. Found too few results?
• Check your spelling
• Add extra search terms to your search string e.g. parent* OR mother OR
father
• Remove the least well defined concept string (to widen out your search)
• Are you searching in the right database?

41. Limits
• Limit to a date range
• Limit to English language
• Limit to Academic Journal/Peer review

42. Other tips:
Do not search within the abstract only
• Best practice is to search within the article citation – this includes all the details
about the article, including title, abstract and subject headings
• Limiting your search to words in abstract is not recommended as not all papers
include abstracts
• An abstract only search would not search within title or the major/minor subject
headings

43. Do not limit results to full-text only
• This is not good practice as your results will not be comprehensive
• You will lose the most recent articles where full-text has been embargoed by
publishers
• Many citations may have embedded links to full-text
• Full-text might be available by searching for the article title in Summon or
Google

44. Do not limit to results to the UK
• The geography limiter in Cinahl limits to articles published in the UK, not
articles about the UK
• This is not generally helpful as research done in other countries may still be
applicable to the UK, eg. Australia, New Zealand, Canada where healthcare
systems are similar

45. If the full-text isn’t available try the following
• Cinahl articles – check the citation for embedded DOI link
• Cut and paste the title of the article into Summon or Google
I have a good article but there is no full-text-
what can I do?
DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000001638

46. • Research methodologies include cohort studies, RCTs (Randomised
control trials), experiments
• Data collection methods include questionnaires, observations, tests
• Keywords such as statistics, validity, risk, ratios, sampling, scores
• If in doubt remember quant = quantity
Quantitative – how can you tell?

47. • Will be about people’s experiences, perceptions or attitudes
• Research methodologies include grounded theory, ethnography,
phenomenology
• Data collection methods include semi- structured interviews, focus
groups, narratives, diaries, observation or case studies
• Likely to use smaller sample sizes
• Remember qual = quality
Qualitative research – how can you tell?

48. What is a journal article?
Articles are written by academics or researchers reporting
on their current research
Peer Review
When journal articles are submitted for publication in a
journal, they go through a rigorous editing and review
process by other experts in the field, therefore becoming
‘peer’ reviewed to indicate a high quality of research.

49. • Journals are Academic magazines
• Cover a specific topic or discipline
• Published on a regular basis
• Made up of volumes with issues (or parts)
• Each issue contains a number of articles
Main source of evidence – journal articles

50. The structure of an article
Usually a peer-reviewed journal article is made up of the following sections:
Note - Some of the terminology will vary dependent on the criteria that publishers have chosen to use. Also the
order of parts may differ too
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References

51. • Use the A-Z of e-journals link to search for individual titles
• You can usually browse all issues or search within a journal
• Useful for accessing journals not included in standard databases
Searching individual journals

52. If you can’t obtain the article from any of our sources we can order it for you.
• You will need to fill in a resource request form, this must be signed and returned to
the library either in person or by post (they can’t be scanned and emailed)
• Allow 5 working days for documents to be sent to you
Resource requests

53. • Step-by-step guide to advanced literature searching including:
• Links to past dissertations with example literature searches
• Video search guides – database examples
• Thesaurus – help finding search terms
http://libguides.uos.ac.uk/AdvancedLiteratureSearchGuide
Advanced literature guide

54. Book a one-to-one tutorial
Use the booking page on the learning services website
Small groups can be booked by numbers need to be advised of first if possible
Skype appointments possible
Support with your question or choice of articles – please see your tutor
Follow up support for your literature search

55. Thank you - questions