Physical Therapy: Searching the Literature: Home

A systematic and thorough search of published literature in order to collect information about a particular topic.

• Create research proposals
• Collect evidence on effectiveness of clinical treatments
• To make a clinical decision
• Gather information for presentations

Steps for Acquiring Evidence

1. Identify a clinical problem
2. Create a well-defined research question (using PICO)
3. Translate PICO into a search strategy
   • Brainstorm and gather synonyms
   • Construct the search strategy
4. Select most likely resources (databases)
5. Tailor search strategy to database(s)
6. Save search & export citations to reference manager