Читать книгу Practitioner's Guide to Using Research for Evidence-Informed Practice - Allen Rubin - Страница 38

Whether you use Medline, Google Scholar, or some other professional literature database, the process for electronically retrieving individual studies is essentially the same. Typically, you begin by entering a search term connected to your practice question. For example, questions about what interventions are most effective in treating physically or sexually abused girls with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – or about the comparative effectiveness of exposure therapy versus EMDR – might entail entering search terms like PTSD, exposure therapy, EMDR, sexual abuse, child abuse, and so on.

On occasion, you may find yourself searching for research on a topic with which you are relatively unfamiliar. In this case, you may struggle to confidently come up with search terms that exactly capture what you're looking for. Many areas of practice might be described using jargon or terms that aren't immediately obvious to a newcomer. It could save you some precious time to have a brief discussion about possible search terms with someone who is more familiar with the area of practice within which you are searching such as a colleague or researcher.

Your search term at some sites can be rather long. For example, at Google Scholar we conducted a search using the terms: treatment outcome with sexually abused Native Alaskan girls with PTSD. (Actually, we didn't need to use the word with in the search term, but we have kept it here to make the term more readable to you.) Alternatively, some databases will give you the option of coupling shorter search terms by using the connecting word and to more narrowly target the number of studies that will come up. For example, if you just enter the search term PTSD, you'll get an overwhelming list of bibliographic references covering all aspects of PTSD. However, if your search terms include both PTSD and treatment outcome, the list will be shorter and will be limited to references dealing with treatment outcome in PTSD. If you want to reduce further the number of irrelevant references that you'll need to wade through, you can expand your search term using the word and twice. For example, if your search term contains PTSD and treatment outcome and sexually abused girls, you'll get a much shorter list.

You can also limit the types of research designs that will come up. For example, you can enter the search term PTSD and treatment outcome and randomized experiments and sexually abused girls. If you narrow your search term too much, however, you might not get enough useful references. For example, if your search term is PTSD and treatment outcome and randomized experiments and sexually abused girls and Native Alaskans, you'll probably find no references that meet all your specifications. (We tried this and found none, although some tangential references did come up.) Finding the right types of research for your particular question requires that you know something about which types of research are best used to answer which kinds of questions.

If your search term is so narrow that you get too few (or perhaps no) useful references, you should restart your search with a broader term – one less and, perhaps. Another way to broaden your search is by using the connecting word or. For example, if you are searching for studies on the treatment of trauma symptoms among children exposed to domestic violence, and your search term is treatment outcome and children and domestic violence, you might get more references to children who witness domestic violence and not get some useful ones on children who are themselves abused by a perpetrating family member. To broaden your search to pick up more of the latter type of useful references, you could use the search term treatment outcome and children and domestic violence or child abuse. In some cases, you may want to add the term not to specifically limit your search. For example, you may be searching for studies related to adult attention deficit disorder, but find that you are overwhelmed with studies of children. Your search might include the term: attention deficit disorder not child. The search terms and, or, and not are called Boolean operators, and all search engines include these operators to guide searches.

Although many electronic databases have elements in common, such as Boolean operators, each of them has its own quirks. For example, when you do not specify one or the other between terms, some search engines assume that the connecting word is and, while others assume that the connecting word is or. Some search engines allow for a smaller number of search terms than others. In general, it's well worth your time to look at the help section of the database that you are using to learn how to use each engine to its fullest potential and save yourself some time.

The feature titled “An Internet Search Using Google Scholar and PsycINFO” illustrates how you might have to play around with a variety of search terms to find what you need and feel confident that you haven't missed something relevant and valuable. There is no one simple way to conduct your search, so you might ask, “Is it really worth the time and effort?” Well, what if you were the client in great distress and hoping that the practitioner treating you cared enough to make every effort to provide you with the treatment that had the best chance of success? What would your answer be?