Health Information Sources & Searching

1. Define your research question or topic
   • Before searching databases for health information, start by defining your research question or topic.
2. Identify important concepts
   • Break down your research question or topic into smaller, key concepts.

   • There are many more tools to help you identify the key elements in your question or topic. These tools can also help you refine your research question.

     • PICO - Patient/Population/Problem, Intervention/Exposure, Comparator, Outcome(s)

       1. Patient/Population/Problem - What individual, group, or problem are you interested in learning more about?

       2. Intervention/Exposure - What intervention(s) or exposure(s), such as drug, therapy, or radiation are of interest?

       3. Comparator - Identify any other intervention that you want to compare. (Optional)

       4. Outcome(s) - What do you want to know about the patient/population/problem, the intervention/exposure, and if present, the comparator?

     • PCC - Population, Concept, Context

       1. Population - What individual or group are you interested in learning more about?

       2. Concept - What key element or detail is of interest?

       3. Context - What is the setting, event, or circumstance? 

3. List synonyms and related words for each concept
   • For each concept, find related words or synonyms that describe the concept. These can be keywords and words from a controlled vocabulary source:
     • Keywords - also called “natural language” words are words or terms that you normally use when describing the topic.
     • Thesaurus words - these are words from an authoritative or reliable source. The Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) thesaurus is the National Library of Medicine’s controlled vocabulary source for medical literature.

Topic: Prostate cancer screening for minorities

Visit the Database Searching Tips page to learn how to apply your concepts and terms to a database search.