Basic Search Principles

1. Formulate a question using the PICO format.
2. Generate keywords - use the PICO format to generate a keyword for the problem, intervention, comparison and outcome.
3. Chose a bibliographic database:

• Cochrane has systematic reviews
• Medline is administrated by die National Library of Medicine in the USA. The version, PUBMED, is available cost-free.
• Secondary sources named under step 2 can also be used

4. Conduct the search using the boolean operators "AND" or "OR"

• AND = only articles containing both terms
• OR = articles containing either term

If too many papers are found, use PUBMED to limit the results.