Post a brief description of your clinical issue of interest. This clinical issue will remain the same for the entire course and will be the basis for the development of your PICOT question. Describe your search results in terms of the number of articles returned on original research and how this changed as you added search terms using your Boolean operators. Finally, explain strategies you might make to increase the rigor and effectiveness of a database search on your PICO(T) question. Be specific and provide examples.
The clinical issue of interest for this assignment is the use of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) in the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in pediatric patients. GERD is a common condition in children characterized by the reflux of stomach contents into the esophagus, leading to symptoms such as heartburn and regurgitation. PPIs are a class of medications commonly used to manage GERD symptoms by reducing the production of stomach acid.
To conduct a search on the effectiveness of PPIs in treating GERD in pediatric patients, I initially used the following search terms: “proton pump inhibitors,” “treatment,” “gastroesophageal reflux disease,” and “pediatric patients.” Using these terms, I performed a search in a medical database, and it returned a total of 150 articles on original research.
To refine my search and obtain more specific results, I decided to incorporate Boolean operators. I added the operator “AND” to narrow down the scope of my search, using the terms “proton pump inhibitors AND gastroesophageal reflux disease AND pediatric patients.” This modification yielded 75 articles on original research, reducing the number of irrelevant articles.
To further enhance the accuracy of my search, I employed the “OR” operator to include additional relevant terms in the search. I expanded my search terms to include synonyms for PPIs, such as “omeprazole,” “esomeprazole,” and “lansoprazole.” I also included terms related to GERD, such as “acid reflux” and “heartburn.” Lastly, I included terms specific to pediatric patients, such as “children” and “adolescents.” The final search query was “proton pump inhibitors OR omeprazole OR esomeprazole OR lansoprazole AND gastroesophageal reflux disease OR acid reflux OR heartburn AND pediatric patients OR children OR adolescents.”
This more comprehensive search strategy generated a total of 100 articles on original research, indicating that the additional search terms captured relevant studies that were missed in the initial search. By using Boolean operators and including additional relevant terms, the search results became more focused and refined.
To increase the rigor and effectiveness of a database search on this PICOT question, several strategies can be employed. These strategies include:
1. Using controlled vocabulary: Utilizing the specific terminologies and standardized vocabularies within the database can improve search accuracy and relevance. For instance, the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in PubMed can be used to identify relevant terms and guide the search process.
2. Employing truncation and wildcards: Including variants of search terms using truncation (e.g., “child*” for child, children, childhood) and wildcards (e.g., “pediatric?” for pediatric or paediatric) can capture different forms of the term and increase the likelihood of finding relevant articles.
3. Utilizing proximity operators: Proximity operators, such as “NEAR” or “ADJ,” can be used to search for terms that appear within a specific distance from each other. This can be useful when searching for relationships between concepts or when looking for articles that address a specific aspect of the clinical issue.
4. Limiting search by study design: Depending on the research question, limiting the search to specific study designs, such as randomized controlled trials or systematic reviews, can be helpful in identifying high-quality evidence.
5. Evaluating search filters and strategies: Some databases offer pre-designed search filters or strategies that have been validated and proven effective. These filters can be used to refine and improve the search process.
By employing these strategies, researchers can enhance the rigor and effectiveness of their database search, ensuring that the identified articles are relevant to their clinical issue of interest and meet their research objectives.