When searching for information, it is important to remember that searching is an iterative process. The first step for any research project is to come up with a search plan.
1. Determine your research question and utilize the PICO(T) format.
2. Make a list of possible search terms for each of the concepts in your question.
3. Use the Boolean operators (AND, OR) in your search strategy.
4. Decide where you will search for information. It is a good idea to search more than one place (e.g. CINAHL and PubMed) for information. What other resources might have information about your topic?
5. Revise search strategy as needed and repeat.
For any research question, you will be most successful in finding information if you break the question into separate concepts.
For example, you are interested in finding information about the effect of residency programs on retention of newly hired nurses.
Your initial search in CINAHL might look like this: nurses and residency and retention.
This chart shows how including additional terms changes the search results.
| Search Strategy | Number of Results (as of 04/10/2018) |
|---|---|
| nurses and residency and retention | 194 |
| nurs* and (residency or internship or mentor*) and retention | 810 |
| nurs* and (residency or internship or mentor* or orientation) and retention | 1120 |
| nurs* and (residency or internship or mentor* or orientation) and (retention or job satisfaction) | 1438 |
Search Techniques
When adding an * to the end of a word, this will retrieve alternate word endings:
Look carefully at the article abstract and the database record for additional search terms. In the above example, job satisfaction was added to the search strategy as a related concept for retention.