Review of Medical Literature, Electronic Search for Journals (trans 4)

Question 1

RESEARCH IN MEDICINE

“The general principle of medical research is to develop new knowledge and technology, which can be translated respectively to skills and tools needed to improve the practice of the medical profession and the provision of services for the attainment of health for the general public.”

Answer 1

TYPES OF RESEARCH:

1. BASIC RESEARCH

• Uses healthy humans and experimental animals as
  subjects
• Aims to develop better understanding of the nature,
  and relationships of normal events in the human body
• Basis for some future action of application in medicine

2. EPIDEMIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

• Uses populations both healthy and with disease as subjects
• Primary use is for identification of risk factors and causes of disease
• Basis for development of preventive measures

3. CLINICAL RESEARCH

• Involves human subjects or patients
• Involves examining the disease process, including identification of the determinants of the outcome of the illness
• Knowledge gained is used in developing technology for diagnosis and treatment of disease

Question 2

RESEARCH PROBLEM FLOWCHART

Answer 2

a. ) Begin with the Research Problem.
b. ) Perform Literature search/review to know more about the problem. Has it been researched before? What is already known about the research problem or topic?
c. ) Perform Critical Appraisal of the Literature.

• Were the results of the studies in the literature valid and applicable? Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the studies. Were the methodologies used correct? What are the results of the studies you’ve read?
• If literature shows valid results/answers to your problem, then your research problem is already answered. Or, you may also validate the results found in the literature by performing your own research on the topic.
• However, if the results of similar studies are not valid and/or not applicable to your own research, you may pursue and implement your own research on the topic

Question 3

SOURCES OF MEDICAL INFORMATION

Answer 3

1) Medical books
2) Expert’s opinion/s
3) Medical journal

• Actual retrieval of articles in library
• Electronic search using the internet

Question 4

PURPOSE OF REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Answer 4

• enables the researcher to learn from previous theory based
  on the subject
• identifies gaps or controversies
• illustrates how the subject has been studied previously
• critique previous research
• provides a context for research
• justifies the research
• ensures that the research has not been done before
  *

Question 5

ELEMENTS OF REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Answer 5

1) Studies closely related to the problem
* reviewed literature should be related to your topic
2) Research design
* study designs used in similar studies
3) Population/Sampling Methods
* who were the subjects and what methods were used to obtain samples or subjects?
4) Variables operationally defined

• Operational definition of variables is how you define variables in YOUR OWN STUDY/RESEARCH.
• e.g. Smoking cessation is defined in your study as not smoking cigarette for 6 years.

5) Extraneous variables
* variables that may influence your dependent variable; factors that are in the experiment/research but are not being studied; extraneous variables will help you have an idea on possible extraneous variables
6) Recommendations for future research
* the ROL also shows the author’s or researchers’ recommendations regarding the topic/study such as issues or variables that they were not able to address or include in their research

Question 6

ELECTRONIC SEARCH (E-SEARCH)

Phrase the question precisely. Identify PIOM:

P - POPULATION/PROBLEM

I - INTERVENTION

O - OUTCOME

M - METHODS

Answer 6

1. Choose Electronic Medical Database
   o Medline (PubMed)
   o Herdin
   o Local Articles
   o PCHRD (Phil. Council for Health Research and Dev’t)
   o Cochrane
   o Systematic Reviews/Meta-Analysis
   o Lancet
2. Expand and intersect concepts sequentially as needed
3. Examine yield for misfits and misses and modify search as
   necessary

Question 7

Example:
Among adult patients with dyslipidemia, what is the efficacy of anti-cholesterol agents (e.g. statins) in preventing myocardial infarction in a randomized controlled trial?

Answer 7

What is P?
P means Population = adult patients with dyslipidemia.
What is I?
I means Intervention = anti-cholesterol agents (e.g. statins)
What is O?
O means Outcome = prevention of myocardial infarction
What is M?
M means Methodology = randomized clinical trial

Question 8

CHOOSING A E-MEDICAL DATABASE

Answer 8

 The best is Medline which you can access through Pubmed.
 Herdin are for local articles.
 Cochrane is for systematic review or meta-analysis.
o Meta-analysis is a statistical technique that combines (compares and contrasts) findings of several studies.

Question 9

The Boolean Logic

Answer 9

• shows relationship between populations
• regardless of the manner of accessing the MEDLINE (PubMed), the database is stored and can be retrieved using the Boolean principle
• Journals are indexed together as set of articles based on their key words. Searching for articles may be facilitated using the Boolean terms “AND” and “OR

Question 10

USING PUBMED

Answer 10

• Developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the NLM, located at the US National Institutes of Health (US-NIH)
• Use the PIOM format for your research problem when navigating through the database
• Use the Boolean term “AND” to narrow down the search
• For publication dates, 5 years is recommended (recent articles). E.g. studies done in 2010-2015 are recommended.