LITERATURE SEARCHING

Tony S. Djajakusumah
Fakultas Kedokteran Unisba
What is literature?
• "a body of written works"
(Encyclopedia Britannica )

Scientific literature:

• "... writings on a particular subject"

(Concise Oxford English Dictionary & Merriem Webster)
Types of literature
Primary Literature (also called primary sources) :

• Scientific journal articles

(mainly full articles but also letters to editor, short communication articles etc.,)

• Proceedings
Collection of printed articles (in book form) that have been presented in a
scientific conference or symposium

• Theses & dissertations (the difference is minimal)

• Patents...
Types of literature
Secondary Literature (secondary sources) :

• Literature revive articles

(articles summarizing the recent research articles in a narrow field)

• Indexing and abstracting databases

(for locating and accessing the primary literature. E.g., Science
Citation Index)
Types of literature
Tertiary Literature: Everything else

• Dictionaries and encyclopedias

• Handbooks
• Books
• Textbooks etc…
 LITERATURE SEARCH

“A literature search is a well thought out

and organized search for all of the literature published
on a topic. A well-structured literature search is the
most effective and efficient way to locate sound
evidence on the subject you are researching. Evidence
may be found in books, journals, government papers”
OBJECTIVES OF LITERATURE SEARCH

• Establish the state of the art

(enable you to familiarize with existing knowledge and
understanding of your topic.)

• Identify deficiencies in current knowledge

(reveal previously unknown or unfamiliar sources of data and
related research)

• Critically assess the most fruitful direction(s) for

future research.
(get entirely new ideas and approaches to the problem, evaluate
and compare your research with accepted research standards)
PURPOSE OF A LITERATURE SEARCH

• Broadens your knowledge on a topic

• Shows your skill at finding relevant information

• Allows for critical appraisal of research

Never forget !!

"Two hours in the library

can save six months in the
laboratory"
WHERE TO FIND LITERATURE?
Library vs. Internet
• Almost all printed material became available in
internet in electronic form.
• They are:
• Cheaper,
subscriptions are
affordable,
• Searchable
• Downloadable
• Archivable
• Accessible from everywhere
• Future researchers will not know where is the
library!!!
THE LITERATURE SEARCHING PROCESS

“is not an exact science but an art.”

Samuel Butler

Try to think of the process as a

“journey not a destination”
Hearst, 1999
 THE KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF A SYSTEMATIC SEARCH
ARE:
• A clearly stated set of objectives with pre-defined eligibility criteria for
studies;
• An explicit, reproducible methodology;
• A systematic search that attempts to identify all studies that would
meet the eligibility criteria;
• An assessment of the validity of the findings of the included studies,
for example through the assessment of risk of bias;
• A systematic presentation, and synthesis, of the characteristics and
findings of the included studies.”
Planning your search.

• Before you open a single database or type one keyword, you must
plan your search.
• It doesn’t matter if you are conducting a full systematic review or if
you are conducting a systematic search for a literature review or a
discussion paper, either way you need to have a clear question and a
systematic plan of attack.
• Without this, your search is disjointed and therefore takes longer, you
will miss important articles and your conclusions will be questioned by
your peers as potentially biased.
Formulate the question
The first and most important step in developing a search strategy is to
formulate a clear question.
• What do you want to know?
• Who are you interested in?
• Where and when are you interested in?
• What treatment type?
• Are there alternatives to that treatment?
• Are you interested in those as well, or do you want to exclude them?
You need to have a clear and focused question to ensure
you get the most specific evidence with the least effort.
Example Question: How well does a random urine protein to
creatinine ratio diagnose proteinuria versus a 24-hour urine
collection for protein?
• P (population): the demography of the population (age, gender, race) the
problem of the population (condition or diagnosis or symptoms)
• e.g. people with diabetes
• I (intervention): what is the treatment under investigation
• e.g. random urine protein to creatinine ratio
• C (comparator): comparison of intervention (specific: weight bearing
exercise) alternative interventions (broad: any other treatment) control
(nothing)
• e.g. 24-hour urine collection for protein
• O (outcome): change in symptoms of the population reason for using the
exposure
• e.g. diagnosis of proteinuria
Example question: Is acupuncture, compared with hypnosis, a
successful intervention to use to stop teenagers smoking?
P (population):
the demography of the population (age, gender, race) the problem of the population (condition or
diagnosis or symptoms) e.g. teenagers
E (exposure):
who delivered the exposure (intervention/treatment)
how the exposure was delivered (frequency, dosage)
where the exposure was delivered (hospital, community centre)
what the exposure was (massage, splinting, exercises) e.g. acupuncture
C (comparator):
comparison intervention (specific: weight bearing exercise)
alternative interventions (broad: any other treatment)
control (nothing)
e.g. hypnosis
O (outcome):
change in symptoms of the population reason for using the exposure
e.g. smoking behaviour
T (time period):
short term, long term, not specified, actual time specified (i.e. 6 months, 2 years)
Define the concepts and develop keywords.

• Once you have your question, write it down and keep it

close!
• It’s very easy to get sidetracked by related but irrelevant
information, and lose sight of your main aim;
• It helps to have your question/aim in front of you for those
times when you start to get distracted or lost.
CONCEPT CARPAL TUNNEL
Key words
• carpal tunnel, carpal tunnel syndrome, CTS median mononeuropathy,
repetitive motion, repetitive motion disorder, repetitive motion injury,
Tinel sign, Phalen's sign, repetitive strain disorder, repetitive strain
injury, RSI
CHOOSE THE DATABASES.
The following databases are free access, and contain
evidence based healthcare articles from a variety of health
professions. These articles come in many forms but include
systematic reviews, Meta-analyses, clinical practice
guidelines and clinical trials.
• Google scholar
http://scholar.google.com.au/
• Cochrane Library (Systematic reviews and review protocols)
http://www.cochrane.org/
• TRIP (Turning Research Into Practice- Evidence based healthcare database)
http://www.tripdatabase.com/index.html
• NIHS (National Institute for Health Research)
http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/crdweb/
CHOOSE THE DATABASES
• Bandolier (Evidence based healthcare database)
http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/
• National Guideline Clearing House (resource for evidence-based
clinical practice guidelines)
http://www.guideline.gov/
• Embase
https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/embase-biomedical-
research/embase-coverage-and-content
• PubMed (biomedical literature from MEDLINE and other life science
journals)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
CHOOSE THE DATABASES

The following databases are free access, and contain evidence based
healthcare articles from specific healthcare professions.
• OT Seeker (resources relevant to occupational therapy interventions)
http://www.otseeker.com/
• PEDro (The Physiotherapy Evidence Database)
http://www.pedro.org.au/
• SpeechBITE (Speech Pathology Database for Best Interventions and
Treatment Efficacy)
http://www.speechbite.com/
MEDLINE Why use it?
• Good coverage of wide range of clinical medical topics
• One of the longest periods of coverage: from 1966, with over 15 million records
• Very strong and widely recognised controlled thesaurus of MeSH (Medline Subject
Headings) for good relevancy of results. Transparent navigation of MeSH terms allows
searcher to ‘see inside’ the organisation of the database
• Ovid interface has excellent search refining tools, and several save options including auto-
alert
Bear in mind...
• Long indexing delay: 3 to 6 months for complete records (Pre-medline helps to overcome
this)
• Very large: over 11 million records, so requires sifting through results
• Of the biomedical, science and social science databases one of the weaker ones for
psychiatry and psychology
• Journal coverage weighted toward North American titles
• Does not usually index publications other than journal articles
EMBASE
Why use it?
• Good coverage of wide range of clinical medical topics, but particularly
strong in pharmacology and psychiatry when compared with Medline.
• Good European journal coverage
• Well structured controlled thesaurus (Emtree) for good relevancy of results
• In addition to journal articles, covers meetings, conferences and symposia
• Shorter Indexing delay than Medline: 4 to 8 weeks
BUT
• Coverage: 1980 to present
EMBASE
• List of journal titles in Embase
• Embase provides unparalleled coverage of the biomedical literature,
with 32 million+ records from almost 8,300 currently published
journals. Embase includes six million+ records and 2,900 + journals
that are not covered by MEDLINE. Also, Embase Classic provides
access to data going back to 1947.
• Download the full list of journal titles in Embase (XLSX, 912kb). If you
would like to suggest a journal title for inclusion in our database,
please let us know by filling in the form.
 Google
Scholar

Can search for

books and
articles

Can do an
advanced
search
Title links to
abstract and
possible source of
full text

“Find it with
OLinks” links to
full text version

Link to articles
that cited the
work

Link to related
articles
BGSU Library
Homepage

1. Academic

Search
Complete

2. Search by
journal
name

3. BGSU
catalog

4. OhioLINK
 Academic
Search
Complete

Type in search
word

Limit by context
(author, title,
etc)

Add more search

criteria
Add to folder

Click on the title

opens the
abstract.

Number of times
cited in
database

Narrow by
subject

Find It!
Provides links
to full text
version of
articles

CHECK
DATES!!!!
Pick a book
and click on
title
EVALUATION
You need to evaluate each article to make sure they are relevant to your
topic/needs. i.e.:
• Display the search results on the screen
• Does the paper cover the correct topic?
• You are guaranteed to find at least one totally irrelevant paper in every search you do.
• Is the information recent enough?
• Did you specify a date range?
• Does it match the type of information you wanted
• Qualitative, quantitative, research design?
• Is it from a primary or secondary source?

If you found relevant articles – congratulations!

Critique the Literature
• Is it relevant to my research?

• Is the study significant?

• Strengths and weaknesses

• What theories or methods are used?

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION