As a Public Health organisation, we (the Health Development Agency) focus
in finding the evidence on the effectiveness of non-clinical interventions
such as counselling/ health education/ behaviour change/policy change/
legislation/ media campaigns etc. The core type of questions we formulate
for the research we carry out are of the type:
What public health interventions (policy/law/education/counselling) are
effective in helping a particular group of people (e.g. manual workers)
stop smoking?
The research question is then constructed, generally, in the following way:
1. General and specific terms to describe the topic. E.g.
Smoking/cigarettes/tobacco/ etc
2. Outcome terms: cessation/ prevention/ rehabilitation etc
3. 3a. Topic specific health promotion/prevention interventions. E.g.
Packaging/sponsorship/licensing/taxation
3b. General health promotion/prevention interventions. E.g. Behaviour
therapy/preventative health services/health education/lifestyle change/
attitude change/ counselling/ etc
4. Target population. E.g. "manual workers" or a particular socio-economic
group, as we tend to focus on disadvantaged groups.
5. Setting (if we are interested in interventions taking place in a
particular setting). E.g. workplace/hospitals/family/help
lines/websites/communities
6. Exclusions. E.g. "nicotine replacement therapy" - as we are not
interested in clinical interventions
7. Limits (year and language)
The different search parts are then linked as ((((1 ADJ 2) AND (3a OR 3b))
AND 4) AND 5) NOT 6) AND 7))))
Please note that the combination of 1 and 2 has been simplified above. In
some databases these terms are automatically linked by a subject heading
(e.g. "Smoking Cessation" is a Mesh heading); then 1 and 2 text words may
have to be linked term by term: "(smoking adj cessation) OR (tobacco adj
use adj cessation) OR (cigarette adj use adj cessation) and so on.
I hope this helps.
Best wishes,
Marta
________________________________________
Marta Calonge Contreras
Public Health Intelligence Officer
Research and Evidence
Health Development Agency
Holborn Gate
330 High Holborn
London WC1V 7BA
Tel. 0207 061 3164
Fax. 0207 061 3393
[log in to unmask]
http:///www.hda-online.org.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alison Sutton
Sent: 25 February 2005 13:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Search strategies for qualitative research
Hello all,
When searching for evidence based or more clinical research materials I
encourage my nursing and midwifery students to use the PICO method to
construct a search strategy and clarify their research questions. Does
anyone know of any alternative search models that would be more suitable
for non-clinical areas such as counselling and therapy. I have a lecturer
who thinks she has seen one somewhere, but I'm drawing a blank as to what
it might be.
Thanks muchly,
Alison
Alison Sutton BA MSc
Subject Liaison Librarian
Institute of Health and Social Care
Information and Learning Services
University College Worcester
Henwick Grove
Worcester
WR2 6AJ
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