The Research Question

Start with a narrative question

Example: Are prophylactic antibiotics effective for preventing infections in total joint replacement?

Consider all the possible keywords, you may need to use them in different combinations.

Total Joint Replacement: Total hip replacement, Total knee replacement, Total Joint Replacement, Arthroplasty, Total Joint arthroplasty, Replacement arthroplasty,

Infection: Infection, Nosocomial infection, Hospital-associated infection, MRSA, Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Surgical Site Infection, Surgery,

Proplylatic Antibiotics: Antibacterial agents

Some researchers find the PICO acronym useful in creating a research question. PICO stands for:

P: Patient or Population

I: Intervention

C: Comparision

O: Outcome

Research Question: Are prophylatic antibiotics effective for preventing infections in total joint replacement?

Patient: patients receiving total joint replacement

Intervention: prophlyatic antibiotics

Comparision: antibiotic administration versus no antibiotic administration

Outcome: prevention of infection

Think critically of the words you use

Patients:

Are they inpatients, outpatients, rehabilitation patients, pediatric patients?

Infection:

What kind of infection...bloodstream, urinary tract, hospital-associated, MRSA?

Spell it out

The databases don’t always recognize abbreviations. If you can’t find it, spell it out.

ACL = anterior cruciate ligament

“C diff” = clostridium difficile

“Botox injection” = botulinum toxin

Put it in quotes

Many search engines such as PubMed automatically search for a phrase. However, you can force a search engine to look for an exact phrase by putting quotation marks around it.

"Asthma quality of life questionnaire"

“Faces pain scale”