Part Two talk By Dr Taghreed Justaniah, this years director of the research summer school

1. @kaimrc_edu
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2. Literature Reviews
4th Research Summer School
12 June 2012
Taghreed Justinia Msc PhD
Asst. Professor, Department of Health Informatics
Asst. Director, Information & Communication Technology
KSAU-HS, NGHA
Tel. +966 2 6240000 ext 26217 / 26210
Email: JustiniaT@ngha.med.sa

3. In this session…
 Definition and understanding of a literature review
 Important steps in literature review writing
 Critical appraisal of journals, articles and websites
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4. Literature Search
 The best way to find high quality information is to
carry out a literature search on one or more databases
and to download, copy or request relevant current
publications on the topic/s of interest.
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5. What is a research literature
review?
 It is a systematic, explicit and reproducible method
for identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing the
existing body of completed and recorded work
produced by researchers, scholars, and practitioners.
Fink, A. (2005). Conducting Research Literature Reviews. London: Sage.
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6. Steps in
literature review writing
 Selecting the research questions
 Selecting the sources
 Choosing search terms
 Conducting the search
 Applying practical screening criteria
 Critically appraising the literature
 Journals & Articles
 Websites
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7. Selecting the research
questions
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8. Research questions influence
search results
High =
lots of
articles Broad
Questions
Retrieval
(# of search
results)
Narrow
Questions
Low =
very few
articles
Low = mostly High = directly
irrelevant articles Relevancy relevant articles
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9. Possible research questions
Broad question:
What is the prevalence of bacterial meningitis?
Narrow question:
What costs are associated with hospitalization for bacterial
meningitis?
Very narrow question:
What strategies have been utilized in Saudi Arabia to reduce length
of stay for patients with bacterial meningitis?
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10. Selecting Sources
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11. Literature review data sources
 Online public bibliographic databases
 Commercial bibliographic databases
 Specialized bibliographic databases
 Manual or “hand searches” of references lists
 “Grey literature”
 Web reports
 Expert opinions
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12. Bibliographic Databases
 Medicine
 MEDLINE (PubMed or Ovid), EMBASE, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO
 Multidisciplinary
 Scopus
 Web of Science
 Nursing and Allied Health
 CINAHL
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13. Websites
 Associations, Organizations & Government
 World Health Organization (WHO)
 Health Canada
 Canadian Medical Association
 UK National Health Service (NHS)
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14. “Grey Literature”
 Dissertations & Theses
 SCOPUS (conference proceedings)
 Web search engines (i.e. Google Scholar)
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15. Citation List
 Searching databases will result in a list of citations,
which include the information needed to locate the
articles in print journals and other sources
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16. Critically Appraising
Journals & Articles
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17. Be Critical
 Once you have obtained the papers most relevant to
your question you should consider a number of things
before using the results.
 This applies even when the publications are from peer
reviewed journals.
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18. Publication Bias
 Negative results don’t (often) get published – If you
want to carry out a detailed or systematic review of a
subject area, you might consider trying to get hold of
unpublished studies.
 Reviewers may be biased against unconventional versus
conventional techniques (eg orthodox drug versus
alternative therapy).
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19. Authorship
 Are the authors based at a well-established Centre of
Excellence?
 Are there any issues of sponsorship or competing
interests?
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20. Journal Ranking &
Impact Factors
 Impact Factor is:
 A measure of the frequency with which the "average
article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year or
period
 The impact factor of a journal is linked to its
popularity and accessibility
 Journals with higher impact factors in a subject area
are generally more highly regarded
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21. Abstract Quality
 Read the paper carefully; don’t rely on only the abstract
 Many abstracts in peer reviewed journals have errors
 Three common types of inaccuracies are:
 data inconsistent in abstract and body of the paper,
tables, and figures
 data or information in the abstract do not appear
elsewhere
 conclusions in the abstract not substantiated in the paper
itself
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22. Critically Appraising
Websites
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23. Be critical, be selective
 The peer review system for journal articles provides a
degree of quality control.
 However, anybody can put anything on the web (you
have to do your own critical appraisal).
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24. What to consider
 Content
 consider intended audience, purpose of site, accuracy
 are the sources of information provided?
 Source; Consider
 author(s)
 is it current and up to date?
 depth/breadth of coverage
 bias – are there any conflicts of interest
 Structure; Consider
 graphics, presentation, ease of use, clarity
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25. Don’t forget!
 Your subject librarian can always help you. Don’t waste
that valuable resource.
 Make an point to meet your medical/university
librarian to assist and advise you on your literature
searches and literature reviews.
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26. Useful References
 Fink, A. (2005). Conducting Research Literature Reviews. London:
Sage.
 Greenhalgh, T. (2006). How to read a paper (3rd ed.). London: BMJ
Publishing Group.
 Sackett, D., Straus, S., & Richardson, W. (2000). Evidence-based
medicine (2nd ed.). Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.
 Wilson, P. (2002). How to find the good and avoid the bad or
ugly. A short guide to tools for rating quality of health
information on the internet. BMJ, 324, 598-602.
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27. Useful Sites
 NHS Solutions for Public Health
http://www.sph.nhs.uk/what-we-do/public-health-workforce/resources
 CADTH. Grey Matters: a practical search tool for evidence-based
medicine - http://cadth.ca/en/resources/grey-matters
 Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews and Interventions -
http://www.cochrane-handbook.org/
 IOM (Institute of Medicine). Finding what works in health care:
standards for systematic reviews -
http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Finding-What-Works-in-Health-Care-Stan
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28. Questions?
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