How to Conduct a Search for a Literature Review Molly Higgins Health Sciences Library
Assuming you have already identified the problem/topic that you are investigating…
… then you’re ready to start your literature search. For a literature search, your search must be systematic and exhaustive
Like this: ((Physicians[mh] OR Nurses[mh] OR "Internship and Residency"[mh] OR “Nursing Staff” OR Physician*[tw] OR Nurs*[tw] OR Doctor*[tw] OR "medical practitioner"[tw] OR Clinician[tw] OR Resident[tw] OR Intern[tw]) AND (Religion[MeSH Major Topic] OR “Religion and Medicine” [MeSH Major Topic] OR Religion[tw] OR religious[tw] OR Spiritual[tw] OR spiritualism[tw] OR Theology[tw] OR theological[tw] OR “Spiritual Care”[tw] OR religiosity[tw]) AND ("Practice Patterns, Physicians'"[mh] OR " Practice Patterns, Nurses'"[mh] OR "Outcome and Process Assessment (Health Care)"[mh] OR "Refusal to Treat"[mh] OR Attitude[mh] OR Communication[mh] OR "Personal Satisfaction"[mh] OR "Social Behavior"[mh] OR Rationalization[mh] OR Emotions[mh] OR Human Characteristics[mh] OR Achievement[mh] OR "Aspirations (Psychology)"[mh] OR "Conflict (Psychology)"[mh] OR Drive[mh] OR Goals[mh] OR Intention[mh] OR “Ethics, professional”[mh] OR “Moral obligations”[mh] OR “quality of life”[mh] OR “consciousness disorders”[mh] OR “advance directive adherence”[mh] OR “interpersonal relations”[mh] OR “terminally ill”[mh] OR “Intensive care units”[mh] OR “Professional Role”[mh] OR “counseling”[mh] OR “family planning services”[mh] OR “job satisfaction”[mh] OR “cooperative behavior”[mh] OR “Nursing Process”[mh] OR “Nurse-Patient Relations”[mh] OR “Holistic Nursing”[mh] OR “spiritual therapies”[mh] OR “Delivery of Health Care”[mh] OR “Patient Care”[mh] OR “Cultural Characteristics”[mh] OR “Chaplaincy Service, Hospital”[mh] OR "Power (Psychology)"[mh] OR "Personality"[mh] OR "Psychology, Social"[mh] OR "Decision Making"[mh] OR “Terminal Care”[mh] OR "practice pattern"[tw] OR "clinical practice"[tw] OR behavior*[tw] OR Attitude*[tw] OR Communic*[tw] OR "practice style"[tw] OR "decision"[tw] OR choice[tw] OR refusal[tw] OR Emotion[tw] OR Conflict[tw] OR Disagreement[tw] OR Outcome*[tw] OR Understanding*[tw] OR Interaction[tw] OR Dissent*[tw] OR “End of Life”[tw]) AND English[la] AND (clinical study[pt] OR Evaluation Studies[pt] OR multicenter study[pt] OR observational study[pt] OR "Support of Research"[pt] OR validation studies[pt] OR comparative study[pt] OR cohort[tw] OR "case control"[tw] OR "clinical study"[tw] OR "clinical trial"[tw] OR “observational study”[tw]))
Search at least 3 databases: PubMed Embase Scopus (or Web of Science) Google Cochrane
Within each database: Test synonyms for each search term Test Boolean operators (AND/OR/NOT) Consult controlled vocabularies Check for related articles Record your search strategy
And most importantly, search each database until you find no additional, relevant articles
Let’s try it!
P: obese teenagers I: changes to diet and exercise C: changes to diet O: preventing type 2 diabetes Let’s try it!
Health Sciences Library Molly Higgins sciences-library ? Questions?
