How to perform a literature search

Abstract 

The first and most crucial stage in performing a comprehensive search of the literature is to formulate a clearly defined question, which can easily be translated into an effective search strategy. The next stage is to choose the most appropriate information resource. There are many resources available, some of which provide access to summaries of pre-appraised high-quality information. These resources should be searched initially and can be interrogated simply by using one or two key terms taken from the search strategy developed. If this approach fails to retrieve any relevant material then more general medical databases should be sought. General medical databases such as MEDLINE provide access to primary research articles. These require more complex interrogation, using many terms from the devised search strategy to maximize the number of relevant hits.

Keywords: clear question, search strategy, clinical effectiveness resource, MEDLINE

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• f1 Correspondence to: RLS. Tel.: +44(0)151 252 5693; Fax: +44(0)151 252 5426; E-mail: r.l.smyth@liv.ac.uk