Search Strategies / Boolean Operators
This operator combines search terms so that only records containing both terms are returned.
What is AND?
This acronym represents a structured formula used in evidence-based practice to break a broad clinical topic into four clear, searchable parts: Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome.
What is PICO?
Randomly assigning similar people to different treatment groups, this design is the gold standard for testing an intervention.
What is a randomized controlled trial (RCT)?
This PICO component may contextualize your research to a specific medical condition
What is population/problem?
This type of clinical question compares an index test or measure to a reference “gold” standard and looks at reliability and validity.
What is a measurement question?
This operator opens a search by returning results containing either search term.
What is OR?
This definition "Defines a construct according to its specific, unique meaning within a study", i.e. it specifies exactly how a variable will be measured or manipulated in a study, or defining a concept in terms of how you plan to measure that concept, important for study replication.
What is an operational definition?
This type of longitudinal design uses historical data from sources such as medical records, insurance claims, or outcomes databases.
What is a retrospective design?
This PICO component may define how the treatment is being evaluated.
What are outcomes?
An outcome is this type of variable.
What is dependent variable?
This boolean operator excludes specific terms from your search results to filter out unwanted information.
What is NOT?
When going a bit deeper/more specific, into the independent variable, these are the different conditions of the INDEPENDENT VARIABLE, sometimes called 'arms' of a study.
What are the levels?
Acceptance of a general proposition and subsequent inferences that can be drawn
What is deductive reasoning?
This PICO component may define the treatment being evaluated.
What is intervention?
Prognosis questions are non-experimental and longitudinal, and are typically answered with these two study designs.
What are cohort and case-control designs?
Using this punctuation around a phrase tells a database to return the exact phrase.
What are quotation marks?
This type of hypothesis has an expected trend/outcome of a relationship between variables
What is a directional hypothesis?
The Nurses’ Health Study, the Framingham Heart Study, and the ABCD Study are all examples of this Level 2 design.
What is a cohort study?
An example of this PICO component may be function, strength, or pain.
What are outcomes?
A study assessing 3 different interventions incorporates this feature of independent variables.
What are levels?
In PubMed, this search strategy searches articles for concept rather than by exact wordage.
What is MeSH?
When designing your study, this component specifies when an outcome will be measured, e.g. "at 8 weeks" or "at 12 weeks."
What is the timing?
This is the process by which evidence is evaluated for quality and applicability to the question of interest.
What is critical appraisal?
An example of this PICO component may be a sham intervention.
What are comparison variables?
Because participants cannot self-select into groups, this RCT feature evenly distributes characteristics that might influence the study between the experimental and control conditions.
What is random assignment (randomization)?