Practice Search #1
Database: Pubmed or PubMed Clinical Queries
Practice: Find studies regarding the effectiveness of physical therapy for low back pain.
Framing the Search: 1-2-3:
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Search terms to use in your search are: |
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1) Disease/condition: |
low back pain |
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2) Intervention |
physical therapy |
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3) Outcome |
relief |
Enter the terms you have into the PubMed search box.
To narrow your results down, think about what type of article will give you the best evidence. In this case, look for a randomized controlled trial or perhaps a systematic review. PubMed's filters for these are a little hidden under the Article Types.
Start with just the systematic reviews first. These types of articles are often a collection of randomized controlled trials that help answer a specific clinical question.
Of course, the shortcut to the cumbersome filters is to simply include the word trial in your search strategy. That would be something like:
low back pain physical therapy relief trial
Practice Search #2 -- Find Guidelines
Database: Trip Database (http://tripdatabase.com)
Practice search: Find a guideline or consensus statement regarding diagnosis and management of recurrent urinary tract infection
Search terms to use are: recurrent urinary tract infection, diagnosis management
What about using AND - don't I need to use that between these terms? Since it is an assumption in nearly all search engines, AND is not needed unless you need special control of how terms are combined. If you have it in there, it is not a problem either.
What did you find? If you had more information (age, sex, or the organization you hope has a guide) then you might be able to include those in your search too.
On your results page, use the filter on the left to narrow to Guidelines -- USA. This will give you fewer results that are specifically guidelines types of documents.
Practice Search #3 -- Drug Information
Database: Pick one from the public Online Clinical Library page - http://libguides.ucsd.edu/ocl2
Practice search: Your patient brought in a couple of pills that really worked on her low back pain but she doesn’t know the name. Can you identify the pill for her? The pill is white, has the imprint M359 and is oval.
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Resource(s) used: |
ePocrates has a pill identifier, but if not immediately available to you, try PillBox from the National Library of Medicine |
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Search Terms used: |
Imprint: M359 Shape: Oval Color: White
Results: -- Only one came up for this.
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Success? Yes/No, and if not, why do you think that happened? |
Not all drug resources have a pill identification capability, so be sure to use one that offers that feature. |
Practice Search #4 -- Google Scholar
Database: Pick one from the public Online Clinical Library page - http://libguides.ucsd.edu/ocl2
Practice search: Find research studies regarding predictors that estimate mortality risk from hip fracture.
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Resource(s) used: |
Google Scholar |
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Search Terms used: |
pedictors mortality risk from hip fracture It might look something like:
Lots & lots of results with this search; however, an easy trick is to target a word or two that when in the title helps identify very pertinent articles. (FYI, this trick is possible in PubMed too.) To do this in Google Scholar, enter intitle: before that word.
There are much fewer results and the concept of predictors is in the title. Full -text tips: The nih.gov makes me think the article might be freely available in PubMed Central. Also, check the All 12 versions to see if it might be in an academic repository from a university or in Research Gate. For example:
Or, skip a couple of steps by installing Unpaywall. It helps you get the full text faster. |
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Success? Yes/No, and if not, why do you think that happened? |
Practice Search #5 -- Patient Education
Database: Medlineplus (http://medlineplus.gov)
Practice search: The consulting cardiologist has recommended angioplasty for your patient. The patient is actively engaged and has many questions and would like to read up on this. What does Medlineplus have on this procedure for the patient? Probably the easiest of the searches.
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Search Terms to use are: |
angioplasty
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What did you find? |
Even with just one term, MedlinePlus has a variety of resources from textual info, links to other organization info, to video presentations.
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