NURS779 Synthesis & Translation of Evidence: Building Your PICO Search

Please note:  Dr. Waldrop's 779 class will NOT be using Covidence.

•   subjects (topics of articles)
•   keywords (searching anywhere for that word)

Alternate names for your topic

•   Prescription vs. OTC drug names

Acronyms or abbreviations

• Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus vs. MRSA

British vs. American spelling

• Haematology vs. hematology

Hyphen vs. no hyphen

• Prepregnancy vs. pre-pregnancy

Related topics that could get you more articles

•   “Video game” and “computer assisted therapy”

Try some search techniques to clean up your results!

• search for words next to each other with double quotes
  • “cell phone”  vs.  cell AND phone
     
• search for variations of a word with an asterisk (but be careful!)
  • Distract* = distract, distracts, distracting, distraction
  • App* = app, application, appliance, apple, apparition
     
• group synonyms together with parentheses
  • Soup or salad and bread…
  • (soup OR salad) AND bread    vs.   soup OR (salad and bread)

("Smartphone"[Mesh] OR "Cell Phones"[Mesh] OR "Computers, Handheld"[Mesh] OR "Mobile Applications"[Mesh] OR "Video Games"[Mesh] OR iphone* OR ipad* OR tablet* OR “electronic device” OR “electronic devices” OR “cell phone” OR “cell phones” OR smartphone* OR “smart phone” OR “smart phones” OR “mobile phone” OR “mobile phones” OR app OR apps OR computer* OR “video game” OR “video games” OR Nintendo OR Sega OR Gameboy OR wii)

*Note: they are combined with OR because they are treated as similar concepts

Other filters you can add to your search- just copy and paste these into your search box with AND in between.

Combine each part of your PICO with AND in beween.  Be sure to use parentheses around groups of synonyms.

(child* OR adolescen* OR teen* OR preteen* OR pre-teen OR "pre-teens" OR youth*) AND ("Smartphone"[Mesh] OR "Cell Phones"[Mesh] OR "Computers, Handheld"[Mesh] OR "Mobile Applications"[Mesh] OR "Video Games"[Mesh] OR iphone* OR ipad* OR tablet* OR “electronic device” OR “electronic devices” OR “cell phone” OR “cell phones” OR smartphone* OR “smart phone” OR “smart phones” OR “mobile phone” OR “mobile phones” OR app OR apps OR computer* OR “video game” OR “video games” OR Nintendo OR Sega OR Gameboy OR wii)  AND pain AND (postop* OR post-op* OR postsurg* OR post-surg*)

*Note: This search is actually a PIOT (patient/ intervention/ outcome/ timeframe), not a PICO (patient/ intervention/ comparison/ outcome)

What do Cochrane's Risk of Bias questions mean?

• Sequence Allocation: Is it random? Is it convenience?  How were they selected?
• Allocation Concealment:  Was it blind?
• Blinding of Participants/Personnel: Did the participants or person conducting the intervention or collecting the data know who received which intervention?
• Blinding of Outcome Assessors: Did those interpreting the data know who received the interventions?
• Incomplete Outcome Data:  Did they report all participant #s (for characteristics, for interventions, for attrition, for exclusion)?
• Selective Reporting of Outcome Data:  Did they report both positive and negative data? Did they admit any limitations or problems with their study design?  Did they fail to report a part of data about that pertains to their research question?
• Other Sources of Bias: Conflicts of interest ($ or affiliations of researchers), if study was localized to one region/state/setting, if diversity was lacking, etc.