In this video, I'm going to talk about ways that you can increase or decrease your results
once you have a set of results from doing a search.
Many times you'll either find you have too many results or too few, and so there are
a couple things that you can try depending on what your situation is.
Those three things are exploding, the use of subheadings, or the use of limits.
And so in this video, I'm going to discuss all three.
When it comes to exploding a term what you'll find is that, it is a good way to take and
give yourself more options.
If you aren't getting enough articles on a topic, one of the things you might want to
think about doing is exploding.
When you explode a term, what you're really doing is making your search a little bit more
unfocused because what exploding does in a database is it causes the database, or forces
the database, to not only look for your designated subject heading - like in this case nurses
- but it will also search the subject heading field for any of the more specific terms that fall below it in the tree.
So in other words, it would not only look for nurses but nurse administrators, nurse
clinicians, nurse practitioners; it would look for all of these to increase the number of articles you get.
Now another reason you might want to do this other than just increase the number of articles
is, it's also a way to ensure that you are getting all of the articles on a given topic.
One thing to keep in mind when it comes to exploding is, in the two main databases you're
going to use, Pubmed and CINAHL, that they each have a little bit of a difference when it comes to this.
In PubMed, PubMed is going to automatically explode.
You'll have to go into the MeSH entry terms and go into the record and tell it not to
explode, which I show you how to do in a video in the PubMed tutorial.
If you don't want it to do it, you have to tell it to stop.
If you do nothing, it'll not only search for nurses but it will search for everything,
which will give you a broader search. In CINAHL, it won't do that.
In order to explode in CINAHL, you must go in to the CINAHL heading entry and tell it,
"I want to explode this term."
If you don't, it'll just search for the given CINAHL heading that you have chosen.
Now let's say that you have too many articles.
One of things that you might want to use are the subheadings.
A subheading very simply put is going to just provide more focus or detail to your search.
Like in this case you'll notice I have Nurses, and you'll see the Scope Note, but you'll also see these subheadings.
What these subheadings will do is take it and give you-- it'll look at a certain aspect
when it comes to nurses.
Like you might want to look at how they're organized in the administration when it comes to nurses.
Or you may want to look at nurses and standards, like what it takes to become a nurse, or you
might be interested in the supply and distribution depending on what your interest is or what your question is.
When you use subheadings, it'll always decrease the number of articles you have returned to you.
The more of them you click, the more articles you'll get.
If you click none of them when you're doing a search, it'll look at all of them.
Your search results will return all of them, but if you start picking them, you're automatically
decreasing the number of articles you get.
I always stress to not use this option unless you really know what you're doing or until
you have looked at the articles that have been returned to you.
Because in using them, sometimes you may eliminate an article from your search results that in
fact, upon further reflection, may be useful in answering your question.
Another way that you can further focus a search is the use of limits.
As you can see on the left side here of the page, I have a list of the couple different
types of limits that you'll find in databases.
When it comes to the limits, one of the more important ones is probably the one for language
because mainly the databases that we are using are international in scope; many of them have
articles that are not in English.
And if you're unable to get one translated or you don't speak that language, the best
thing maybe to do is to go in and use the limit for the English language, which will
help to give you fewer articles and also make sure you have articles you can read.
One of the other things about limits is that they're very useful when it comes to time
period, like if you want to get it to the last ten years or the last five years or something
like that, and its also very useful when it comes to publication types.
As you know when it comes to evidence-based practice, you're always looking for the top
of the pyramid whether that be an evidence-based guideline, systematic reviews, or meta-analyses.
One way to sift through all of the articles you get to get to those are to use limits.
But keep in mind, when you use limits you are decreasing the number of articles you get.
Now with that said, I would like to do a quick review here and give you some other things to think about.
Remember, when you're not finding enough articles, try a couple things.
Explode terms. Remember, that will expand your search.
You can also do some keyword searching.
Remember, keyword searching will expand your search because not only will it search the
subject heading field, but it'll search other parts of the citation as well, therefore giving you more.
Another thing to think about that might be useful is, look at the related or citing articles for that particular article.
You can use those to string along a set of articles that could answer your question and
increase the number that you have to look at and consider.
If you're finding too many articles and you really want to focus your search, there's
a couple ways for you to get fewer articles as well.
One, use the major concept or subject designation.
Make it so that the term you're looking for is the major topic of the paper.
Use subheadings which we just discussed or use limits.
Regardless all of these are good tools to expand or focus your search, but how you use
them and when you use them is largely based upon your comfort level with them and what
your search strategy might be because different databases will allow you to use different
things in order to either expand, or contract, or focus your search.
And that is how you can expand and contract or focus a search depending on your need when it comes to a search.