Anatomy of a literature search

Isla Kuhn

Deputy Medical Librarian

University of Cambridge Medical Library

Polygeia - April 2014

How can stigma of mental illness in developing countries be impacted by education?

Structure your Strategy – take it back to the bone…

• Turn your question into a search strategy

• PICOC

• Population/ Patient/ Problem

• Intervention

• Comparison

• Outcome

• Context

• SPIDER

Sample - Phenomenon of Interest – Design – Evaluation - Research type

• SPICE

Setting - Perspective - Intervention - Comparison – Evaluation

• PICOT

Patient/Problem/Population – Intervention – Comparison - Outcome – Time

• PICO

Patient/Problem/Population – Intervention – Comparison - Outcome

How can stigma of mental illness in developing countries be impacted by education?

• P – mental illness

• I – education

• C – n/a

• O – stigma

• C - developing countries

How can stigma of mental illness in developing countries be impacted by education?

• P – mental illness

• I – education

• C – n/a

• O – stigma

• C - developing countries

Put some meat on the bones……

How can stigma of mental illness in developing countries be impacted by education?

• mental illness / mental health / depression

• education / information / teaching

• stigma / prejudice / awareness / understanding

• developing countries/ low and middle income countries / lmic / least developed countries/ third world countries/ third world nations / under developed countries

Connect it all up properly

• AND

• OR

• NOT

Connect it all up properly

How can stigma of mental illness in developing countries be impacted by education?

• developing countries/ low and middle income countries / lmic / least developed countries/ third world countries/ third world nations / under developed countries

• mental illness / mental health / depression

• education / information / teaching

• stigma / prejudice / awareness / understanding

How can stigma of mental illness in developing countries be impacted by education?

• low and middle income countries OR lmic OR developing countries OR least developed countries

AND

• mental illness OR mental health OR depression

AND

• education OR information OR teaching

AND

• stigma OR prejudice OR awareness OR understanding

#1 low and middle income countries

#2 lmic

#3 developing countries

#4 least developed countries

#5 #1 OR #2 OR #3 OR #4

#6 mental illness

#7 mental health

#8 depression

#9 #6 OR #7 OR #8

#10 information

#11 education

#12 teaching

#13 #10 OR #11 OR #12

#14 stigma

#15 prejudice

#16 awareness

#17 understanding

#18 #14 or #15 or #16 or #17

#19 ?????

Different database, different results

??

skeleton + muscle ligaments + skin

http://library.medschl.cam.ac.uk/resources-training-support/databases/

• Medlinehttp://tinyurl.com/campubmed

• Embasehttp://tinyurl.com/embase

• PsycINFOhttp://tinyurl.com/campyscinfo

• Cochranehttp://www.thecochranelibrary.com

• Web of Sciencehttp://wok.mimas.ac.uk

• Scopushttp://www.scopus.com

• LILACS

http://lilacs.bvsalud.org/en/ • ScIELO

Access via Web of Science

• Trials registers

http://www.who.int/ictrp/en/ • Grey Literature

Google

site:? filetype:?

Trim down a bit ….(efficiency / effectiveness or specificity/sensitivity)

• Subject Headings (MeSH)

• Filters (to find the right methodologies)

• Years of publication

• Age of population

• Inclusion / Exclusion criteria (you can’t/shouldn’t ready everything)

Help

Isla Kuhn

Deputy Medical Librarian

University of Cambridge Medical Library

• ilk21@cam.ac.uk

• @ilk21

• (01223) 336750

• http://library.medschl.cam.ac.uk