Resources and techniques for literature searching in mental health

1. Literature searching for research
Catherine Ebenezer
Library and Information Service
updated April 2012
catherine.ebenezer@tewv.nhs.uk

2. Purposes of literature searching
Identify extent and quality of work
already carried out in the subject
area
Identify key contacts
Avoid duplication!

3. Planning your search: PICO
Patient/population/problem
Intervention/exposure
Comparison/control (may be
implicit)
Outcomes

4. Try it for yourselves!
Effect of different types of flooring on incidence
of falls in frail elderly people
Are ACE inhibitors effective in delaying
admission to nursing/residential care for people
with Alzheimer’s disease?
What interventions can reduce challenging
behaviour in dementia?

5. A search framework: 1
Identify synonyms for each search concept as
identified in your PICO framework
Use Boolean OR to combine synonyms for
each PICO component
Use Boolean AND to combine the grouped
PICO components to execute your search

6. A search framework: 2
P I C O
acute stroke blood pressure reduction no treatment secondary prevention
cerebrovascular accident
cerebrovascular event
ischaemic stroke
anti-hypertensive agents
hypertension – drug
therapy
diuretics, atenolol etc.
lowering blood pressure placebo
secondary prophylaxis
reduce mortality
risk reduction
AND AND AND
OR OR OR OR

7. Search techniques 1
Thesaurus terms / subject headings
 Find using ‘map to subject headings’ feature
 Hierarchical, structured to indicate relationships between concepts: NT, BT,
UF, RT
 Each database has its own, .e.g. MeSH, EMTREE
 Describe content / what the article etc. is about
Free text – terms occurring within a bibliographic record
 Can limit by field e.g. in title, in abstract, in periodical title
 Do not necessarily reflect subject content
***Use subject headings to improve the specificity and
sensitivity of your search***

9. Search techniques: 2
To increase the number of results you retrieve:
Combine free text with subject headings using OR
Truncate
 Stem: e.g. psychiatr* retrieves psychiatrist, psychiatric
 Internal / wildcard: Schultz or Schulz? Schul?z will find both
Explode
 Expands database subject headings to include narrower terms
 e.g. exp Dementia/ will include Alzheimer’s disease, vascular
dementia, Lewy body dementia etc.

10. Search techniques: 3
To increase the number of results you retrieve:
Related articles – from any relevant article
OVID, PubMed MEDLINE, Google Scholar
Cited by – for key papers
OVID, Google Scholar, Web of Science
Reference lists in CINAHL

11. Search techniques: 4
To restrict / decrease the number of results you retrieve:
Use ‘restrict to focus’ / ‘major descriptors’
Add more subject terms to your search strategy using AND
Select subheadings (only if you are really swamped!)
Use limit features
 Language - English
 Age group – your target population
 Publication type – consider searching for reviews only
 Date range – most recent
Use clinical filters

12. Types of literature: 1
Primary literature
Journal articles
Preprints
Conference proceedings
Informally published reports –
(“grey literature”)
Theses

13. Types of literature: 2
Secondary literature
Reviews
Books: edited collections
Books: monographs / surveys
Official publications
CATs, POEMs etc.

14. Sources for literature searching: 1
Databases of articles and books
 Bibliographic e.g. MEDLINE, PsycINFO
 Full text e.g. PsycArticles, Cochrane Database
Library catalogues
e.g. COPAC, British Library, LIBERO, Teesside University
Research databases
e.g. NIHR Portfolio Database / NIHR Research Portal,
Virginia Henderson International Nursing Library (USA),
Research Register for Social Care

15. Sources for literature searching: 2
… not forgetting …
Hand searching of core journals
Reference lists / footnote chasing
Printed bibliographies (older material)
Search engines (NB Google Scholar, Google Books)
Specialised Web portals
Picking colleagues’ brains / contacting key researchers – can yield
unpublished material
Social networking with other researchers

16. Characteristics of the literature
Mental health literature is problematic
multidisciplinary
“poorly controlled” in some areas
scattered across many different databases:
 none is comprehensive
 all need to be looked at in a thorough search
Brettle A J and Long A F (2001) Comparison of bibliographic databases for information
on the rehabilitation of people with severe mental illness. Bull Med Libr Assoc 89(4) 353-
361

17. Bibliographic databases: 1
MEDLINE ATHENS
4000+ journals indexed; 1948-
Produced by National Library of Medicine (USA)
Available free at www.pubmed.gov and via NHS
Evidence
European journals not particularly well covered
Mental health coverage reasonable
Strong on acute medical specialities
PubMed version has useful ‘related articles’ feature

18. Bibliographic databases: 2
Psychological Abstracts
(PsycINFO, PsycLIT, ClinPsyc) ATHENS
Produced by American Psychological Association: 1806-
Not available anywhere free, but short-term access via
web can be purchased
Covers all aspects of psychology
Comprehensive but some US bias

19. Bibliographic databases: 3
EMBASE ATHENS
European commercial product: 1980-
Comprehensive psychiatry coverage
Strong on pharmacology and drug therapy
issues
Thesaurus terms very “old-fashioned”
First resort!
N.B. OVID EMBASE now includes non-overlapping MEDLINE records

20. Bibliographic databases: 4
CINAHL ATHENS
Covers nursing, allied health professions, health
management, health librarianship; 1982-
Recent records include references – can search –
good for tracking down older material
US bias but increasingly strong coverage of UK and
Australasian literature
Good for psychiatric nursing
Includes detailed abstracts of US / Canadian nursing
theses
Some journals very obscure

21. Bibliographic databases: 5
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
ATHENS
575 full text publications
nearly 550 peer-reviewed titles
covers emotional and behavioural
characteristics, psychiatry and psychology,
mental processes, anthropology, and
observational and experimental methods

22. Bibliographic databases: 6
AMED ATHENS
Produced in UK by British Library: 1985-
Allied and Complementary Medicine
Aims to complement MEDLINE
Best source of UK allied health literature

23. Bibliographic databases: 7
Cochrane Library
 Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
 NHS Economic Evaluations Database (EED)
 NHS CRD Database of Abstracts of Reviews of
Effectiveness (DARE)
 HTA Database
 Cochrane Methodology Register
 Central Register of Controlled Trials

24. Bibliographic databases: 8
Citation indexes
Identify a significant piece of published research in
your field
Find out who has cited it in later work
Web of Science citation indexes
(available in university libraries)
OVID databases – ‘ find citing articles’ feature
Google Scholar
BMJ Journals

25. Bibliographic databases: 9
Others …
ChildData (child health and welfare)
ASSIA (applied social sciences)
Social Care Online (social work)
OTSeeker (occupational therapy)
PEDRO (physiotherapy)
HMIC (health management) ATHENS
Dissertation Abstracts

26. Bibliographic databases: 10
lots of web-accessible databases on specialist areas:
 BiblioSleep: sleep
 Autism Data autism /ASD
 Aegis: AIDS-HIV
 NARIC: disability
 CIRRIE: rehabilitation
 PIE: mental health policy
 Campbell Collaboration: social policy
reviews
 CAMEOL: complementary therapies
 speechBITE – speech pathology
 POPLINE – population / reproductive
health
 NSPCC library catalogue – child
protection
 BEI: education (UK)
 AgeInfo (UK), Ageline (US)
 ERIC: education (US)
 Alcohol Concern Knowledge Base:
alcohol
 DrugData: substance misuse
 PEP-WEB: psychoanalysis
 Health Systems Evidence: health
management
 Dementia Catalogue
 PsycBITE – psychological effects of
ABI

27. Bibliographic databases: 11
Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com
 Incorporates results from
 bibliographic databases (e.g. MEDLINE)
 preprint servers and institutional repositories
 library catalogues
 publishers’ catalogues
 Ranks results by relevance (how?)
 Links to:
 full text where available
(NB links to content of TEWV e-journals on site)
 references citing the work
 ‘related articles’
 Can use limits and Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)
BUT – what does it contain? And not contain? Inconsistent!

28. Specialist search engines
Scirus: scientific content - includes scientists'
homepages, courseware, pre-print server material,
institutional repository and website information
OAIster: institutional repository content
SHERPA Search: full-text search of UK repositories
OpenDOAR: world-wide directory of open access
institutional repositories
EThOS – BL electronic theses online

29. Specialist portals
Useful for background information, contacts
NHS Evidence
National Institute for Mental Health in England
Centre for Mental Health
PsychNet-UK
Psychology Wiki
PsychCentral
BrainSource.com

30. Current awareness services
Current awareness
bulletins
Electronic tables of
contents
Subject-based
alerting
RSS feeds
Monitoring changes
in web pages
Health news services
Saved searches in
health databases
Netvibes portal:
www.netvibes.com/tewv-lis

31. Managing your references
Many bibliographic databases will allow you to export
and save your search results in different formats (e.g.
XML, WebCharts, HTML, PDF, tagged text) and / or
email them to yourself or to other people
Bibliographic management applications can be
used to manage references. These let you:
 collect and organise references from many different resources into your own
personal, searchable database
 create formatted bibliographies and reading lists
 develop lists of cited articles as footnotes or as endnotes at the conclusion of
papers

32. Managing your references
Installed on your PC
EndNote
Reference Manager
ProCite
JabRef (free!)
Web-based
RefWorks
Connotea (free!)
CiteULike (free!)
Mendeley (free!)
Wikipedia article:
Comparison of reference management software

33. Research information: 1
Current / ongoing research
NIHR portal and National Research Register archive: ongoing and
recently-completed research projects funded by or of interest to
the NHS
Research Register for Social Care: current and completed UK
social care research
NIH RePORTER (USA): federally-funded biomedical research
Current Controlled Trials: information about RCTs
Database of Uncertainties about the Effects of Treatment:
publishes uncertainties about the effects of treatment
which cannot currently be answered via systematic reviews

34. Research information: 2
Current / ongoing research
Mental Health Research Network
Dementias and Neurodegenerative
Diseases Research Network
RCN Research and Development
Co-ordinating Centre

35. Research information: 3
Guidance and funding for researchers: national
Association of Medical Research
Charities: good practice in research
RDInfo / RDFunding: training, funding
opportunities, advice
Research Councils UK

36. Research information: 4
Guidance and funding for researchers: local
Mental Health Research Centre
at Durham University
SPIRE seminars
Involvement in MHRN studies
Research clinics
Research training: modules in research methods up
to master’s level

37. Catherine Ebenezer
Library and Information Services
Manager
catherine.ebenezer@tewv.nhs.uk
01642 838380 / 838112