Searching Skills Toolkit – Finding the Evidence

Caroline De Brun, Clinical Support Librarian, University College London, UK Nicola Pearce-Smith, Information Scientist, Department of Knowledge and Information Science, Oxford, UK

Chapter 1 Introduction, 1 Evidence-based medicine, 1 Why search?, 2 How do you keep up to date, 4 Further reading, 5 Chapter 2 Where to start, 6 The hierarchy of evidence, 6 The hierarchy of searching, 7 1. How much time do I have?, 8 2. What type of publication am I looking for?, 10 3. Is my query about a specifi c topic?, 13 Chapter 3 Clinical information: sources, 15 Medical libraries, 15 The Internet, 15 Chapter 4 Searching the Internet, 26 Search engines and directories, 26 Evaluating material found on the World Wide Web, 29 Saving useful websites, 35 Chapter 5 Formulating searchable questions, 37 Types of question, 37 Breaking down the clinical scenario, 38 Identifying keywords, 39 Further reading, 39 Chapter 6 Building a search strategy, 41 Identifying synonyms, 41 Synonym sources, 42 Truncation and wildcards, 42 Combining terms (using Boolean operators), 46 Construction of the final search strategy, 47 Chapter 7 Free text and thesaurus searching, 50 Free text searching, 50 Thesaurus searching, 51 Chapter 8 Searching healthcare databases, 55 Finding the evidence: key steps, 55 Medline, 57 PubMed, 57 Ovid Medline, 64 CINAHL, 68 Cochrane Library, 73 Further reading, 80 Chapter 9 Refining search results, 81 Limits, 81 Methodological fi lters, 85 Clinical Queries, 86 Sensitivity versus specificity, 87 Systematic reviews, 89 Further reading, 90 Chapter 10 Saving citations, 93 Logbooks, 93 Reference management software, 94 Chapter 11 Citation pearl searching, 98 Related items, 98 Author search, 99 Keywords, 99 Journals, 100 Snowballing, 100 Alerts, 101 RSS feeds, 101 Chapter 12 Quality improvement and value: sources, 102 Examples of quality improvement and value questions, 102 Current awareness, 102 Searching for evidence on quality improvement and value, 103 Other useful sources of information, 105 Networks, 113 Further reading, 114 Chapter 13 Patient information: sources, 115 Shared decision-making, 115 Poor quality health information, 116 Good quality health information, 116 Appraising online consumer health information, 117 Trusted information sources, 118 Rarer conditions, 120 Third-party assistance, 121 Patient decision aids, 121 Writing patient information, 122 Keeping up to date with patient information, 122 Further reading, 123 Chapter 14 Critical appraisal, 124 Definition, 124 Critical appraisal checklists, 124 Further reading, 125 Chapter 15 Glossary of terms, 126 Appendix 1 Ten tips for effective searching, 135 Appendix 2 Teaching resources, 138 Record your favourite resources, 142 Index, 143