Detail an appropriate search strategy using relevant databases to identify articles on evidenced based practice in the healthcare setting
Literature search is a vital aspect of students' academic life, especially with the advance of technology. Burns and Grove (2005) define literature searching as an organised search system which identifies information highly relevant to the topic appealing. Moreover, searching comes with an essential role in supporting clinicians who want to keep up with the development of evidenced-based practice in the health professions. The word 'evidenced-based practice' has become used to refer to the combo of evidences which improve the quality of information with regards to clinical and patient interests (De Brun & Pearce-Smith, 2009). In order to find the best medical resources, a good search technique is necessary for finding information better, otherwise the researcher could waste lots of your time and discover nothing. The aim of this essay is to spell it out a proper search strategy by defining databases and the reasons for choosing the a specific one because of this assignment. The essay will go on to describe the search steps used to recognize articles on Children Diabetes.
Primarily, the essential part of searching is formulating a well-searchable question in order to be capable of sourcing an answer in the chosen database. For De Brun and Pearce-Smith (2009) 'database' refers to systemic reviews containing an electronic assortment of information that is organised and accessible. There are many search engines where research could be undertaken and each one of them identifies information and data in its way. Although there are always a range of databases available, the one that has been chosen for this particular essay is Pubmed. The explanation for choosing this database is because of the fact that the Internet is a location where a variety of information can be obtained, whether from experts or not. Quite simply, there is no guarantee of validity or the reliability of the info. Therefore, information about healthcare issues should be taken from trustworthy sources. Nordenstrom (2007) stated that Pubmed is one of the principal medical information sources which is linked to the major medical database 'MEDLINE' and accessed via the National Library of Medicine. Moreover, it allows visitors to access data easily and free of charge. In addition, it contains assessed evidenced-based practice articles. However, Pubmed requires following up a proper search techniques.
A search strategy is a method which includes lists of databases and applicable terms that could be the main element area of the research (De Brun & Pearce-Smith, 2009). As stated previously, formulating the question is the essential part of any search strategy, the question used in this essay is 'What are the reasons of developing diabetes in children?'. Breaking down the question into discovered keywords builds smaller, more manageable questions which lead to an efficient search strategy. De Brun and Pearce-Smith (2009) suggested that PICO is the common method in managing the question. Problem, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome is exactly what PICO stands for, respectively. Which means that the situation is the diabetes, the intervention is the typical treatment, for example, regulate the insulin by medicine, the comparison is the choice treatment, for instance, balanced diet and lastly, the outcome is the expected results from the procedure which can be a reduction in insulin level in the blood. Because of the fact that databases are manipulated by computers, the search will cause words which have been typed in by the resaercher. Nordenstrom (2007) suggested that at first, searching as wide as you can to make sure the articles appealing are included, was the best approach. For instance, entering the keyword diabetes in the query box returns a huge number of articles.
The next step can be searching by by using a thesaurus which De Brun and Pearce-Smith (2009) defined as words with an accompanying selection of synonyms or phrases which is often useful to find the relevant articles. A good example of this system is using 'high insulin level' or 'Metabolic syndrome' instead of diabetes. In using this system it is noticeable that the search results have been reduced significantly.
Terminology can be an essential component in the medical field and changing a letter in a term could change the meaning of the diagnosis. The thread step search technique involves using truncation and wildcards, where appropriate, they are shortcuts plus they can save time when using keywords. Truncation is the utilization of symbols, such as asterisks (*) in order to reduce search steps; on the other hand however, this system may raise the quantity of articles. Wildcards involve the utilization of the question mark (?), to differentiate between different English spellings and it is also useful in working with plurals. Though it is interesting to note that Pubmed does not use wildcards (De Brun & Pearce-Smith, 2009). One such case of truncation is with all the word child. Here the stem of the term is employed and any suffux is removed, adding asterisks instead so the key phrase becomes child*. The machine can look for information that refers to child, children, childhood, etc.
The fourth step in strengthening the search is combining words, this is popularly known as Boolean logic. Terms that are being used in a search can become more highly relevant to the formulated question by joining words with: and, or, not, with, brackets and inverted commas. Using AND in a search will display articles that contain both words; for instance, Diabetes and Children. The system will seek out articles that contain both words. However, when working with OR instead of AND, the results includes articles with either word or both of these; whereas, using NOT will restrict the search. For instance, searching about children NOT teenagers (De Brun & Pearce-Smith, 2009).
The final step of the search strategy is limitation, this is performed by filtering the search results. The limitation process is a search using particular structural units such as age, publication years, abstracts only or full text, etc. Utilizing a search limit in researching diabetic children was done by choosing, articles with abstracts only and published within five years. The Pubmed system reduced the amount of articles by retrieving with regards to the selected limits. In using this technique, the amount of results fell from 11501 articles to a manageable quantity of 30.
Metabolic syndrome in childhood and adolescence by Barkai and Paragh (2006) has been chosen as a good article because diabetes is increasing globally among young people. This increase is caused mostly by illness, excess food which brings about a rise in the amount of obesity, and lastly, having less exercise. Therefore, insulin resistance deficiency will occur (Silink & Kida, 2003).
In conclusion, a good search strategy is the main element to obtaining high quality information in evidence-based practice. A clear question, choosing appropriate databases, lists of keywords and synonyms, using truncations and wildcards, combining Boolean operators and applying limits to the email address details are the principles for successfully finding articles on evidenced-based practice.
