PICO fundamentally reminds us to chop our concepts into a few little words. Don't use natural language, especially sentences. Common words have the potential to eliminate results, without separating out the results you need. But other words and phrases are very distinctive, with an unmistakable meaning. Use those!
Word concepts:
synonyms, antonyms, related concepts
narrower, broader
more technical or insider language, more colloquial
keywords, subject headings
Optional -- 3:30 minute video on subject headings: CINAHL nursing theories, PubMed eating disorders
Example:
"social networks" (elderly OR older OR aging)
review, "systematic review"
Choosing search words is a challenge for researchers. Sometimes, there is not a good fit between the possible words and the concepts. Other times, you just don't know what the best words are at first.
1. Keep it simple. Choose a word or short phrase (in quotation marks, if it helps) for each concept. Which words distinguish your concept? Many words you might use could show up in many articles on lots of topics. Don't bother with those, if you can avoid them.
2. Before you start, think. What words would researchers use? Think about narrower words, broader words, and words that are related. Consider jotting them down or making a document that you can copy and paste from.
3. Watch for alternative words as you go. Look at the subject headings.
4. As you go, think about adding more words to get fewer results that are more focused on your topic. Or try taking words out or substituting in words with broader meanings, in order to get more results. You can search on authors, methodologies, data sources, outcomes, or almost anything else of interest.
5. Consider searching in the CINAHL Headings and PubMed MeSH databases before you start really searching for articles.
6. You can ask for help also.
7. Above, I suggested using just one word or short phrase for each concept. If you have synonyms or related terms, you can search on them at the same time using OR.
examples: (teenagers OR adolescents OR youths)
("eating disorders" OR bulimia OR anorexia)
(carolina OR virginia OR appalach*)
You can also use the asterisk, to search for different variations of a word.
Example: theor* will find all these: theory, theories, theoretical
Exceptions:
Asterisks don't work, and are not necessary, in Google Scholar (and Google).
Mostly, don't use quotation marks in PubMed. They override PubMed's automatic term mapping system.
PICO
Helps with creating an answerable, useful question. Helps with choice of search words.
Problem or population -- soccer players
Intervention -- preventive training (or more specific type of preventive training)
Comparison treatment (or placebo) -- alternate type of preventive training? what's being used up to now.
Outcome -- count frequency and severity of injuries. Missed games or training.
Read the lit reviews and follow the citations (backward in time).
Go to your (already identified) article in Google Scholar and look at "Cited by" (going forward in time). You'll also see Cited by in PubMed. Also see "Similar articles" and "Related articles" in PubMed and Google Scholar?
What else has this author published?
