How to get the most from the medical literature: Searching the medical literature effectively

Different clinical questions are best answered using different study designs. This paper describes the best methods for finding relevant studies for well‐framed clinical questions. We focus on which database is best to search to answer your question, describe the structure of effective search strate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNephrology (Carlton, Vic.) Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 12 - 19
Main Authors WEBSTER, ANGELA C, CROSS, NICHOLAS B, MITCHELL, RUTH, CRAIG, JONATHAN C
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Melbourne, Australia Blackwell Publishing Asia 01.02.2010
Subjects
bibliographic databases
epidemiology
evidence-based medicine
information management
information storage and retrieval
Information Storage and Retrieval - methods
MEDLINE
Nephrology
Review Literature as Topic
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Summary:Different clinical questions are best answered using different study designs. This paper describes the best methods for finding relevant studies for well‐framed clinical questions. We focus on which database is best to search to answer your question, describe the structure of effective search strategies and explore ways to develop appropriate search terms. We illustrate these with sensitive and specific search strategies to answer different clinical questions arising from a hypothetical clinical scenario typical of a nephrologist's everyday practice. This review outlines the most time‐efficient and effective strategies to search the literature to answer targeted clinical questions. You are taken through a step‐by‐step approach to enable you to best utilise current contemporary search tools and databases.
Bibliography:istex:0A824084EEA98576C1C5B047EA197ADD908A7C30
ark:/67375/WNG-SJ08090B-S
ArticleID:NEP1263
Source of funding and disclosure of potential conflicts of interest: There was no financial support for this work. ACW teaches a course called ‘literature searching’ which is part of the Clinical Epidemiology degree programme, and JCC is the Sub‐Dean of Clinical Epidemiology at the Sydney School of Public Health, University of Syndey. No author declares any other potential conflict of interest.
or contact the corresponding author for more details.
Authorship contributions: ACW conceived and designed the paper, created the tables and figures, and drafted and revised the manuscript. NBC contributed to the design of the paper, and drafting and revision of the manuscript. RM designed the search strategies, and contributed to drafting and revision of the manuscript. JCC contributed to the design of the paper, and drafting and revision of the manuscript.
Want to learn more about how to search the biomedical literature more effectively? Feel that you could do more to improve your information literacy? The University of Sydney offers a Master's level online distance learning short course on Literature Searching through its Clinical Epidemiology professional development programme. See
http://www.health.usyd.edu.au/future/profdevelopment/introclinepi.php
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ISSN:1320-5358
1440-1797
DOI:10.1111/j.1440-1797.2009.01263.x