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NURS 7220-OL: Evidence-Based Practice/Informatics

Resources and information relevant to the topics discussed in NURS 7220-OL.

How to search a PICO question in PubMed

  • Consider one or two keywords for each element of PICO(T)
  • When you start your search, begin by entering the keywords for P and I. Entering all the keywords from your PICO(T) question may result in a search that is too narrow. Start broad and then focus on narrowing your search.
  • Based on your results, begin adding in other keywords from C, O, and T
  • Consider synonyms, MeSH terms, and variations in spelling for your keywords.
  • Remember, you may have to adapt your search and run multiple searches with different words. That's a natural part of doing research!

Building & Refining Your MEDLINE Searches

1.  Define your question
2. Select MeSH terms that best represent your concepts
3. Decide MeSH terms should include more specific terms
4. Consider text words or key words when a MeSH term does not exit for your concept
5. Select Subheadings, if appropriate, to further define your concept
6. Combine concepts with AND, OR, NOT
7. Refine your search by limiting to age, sex, human, etc.
8. Select appropriate research method terms to retrieve literature with clinical relevancy
9. Review Search Results
10. Examine MeSH terms of particularly relevant articles in your retrieval. Rerun search using those terms 
11. Use the "Related Citation" feature
12. Run Search in other databases, as appropriate.

Useful Terms for EBM MEDLINE Searching

Medical Subject Headings:

  • Clinical Trials
  • Confidence Intervals
  • Cost-Benefit Analysis
  • Decision Making
  • Decision Trees
  • Diagnosis
  • Guidelines
  • Odds Ratio
  • Outcome Assessment
  • Practice Guidelines
  • Predictive Value of Tests
  • Probability
  • Prospective Studies
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Survival Analysis
  • Treatment Outcome

Publication Types:

  • Clinical Trial
  • Consensus Development Report
  • Controlled Clinical Trial
  • Guideline
  • Meta-Analysis
  • Multicenter Study
  • Practice Guideline
  • Randomized Controlled Trial
  • Review

Subheadings:

  • adverse effects
  • diagnosis
  • drug therapy
  • etiology
  • mortality
  • prevention and control
  • therapeutic use
  • therapy