LIBR534 – Health information sources & services

Expert searching concepts – Module IIIFebruary 11th, 2010

Greg Rowell & Dean Giustini, SLAIS Adjunct faculty

What are the main elements of ’expert searching’ that emerge from this diagram?

Rowell-Giustini – LIBR534

Icebreaker: what’s new in medical news?

Lancet retracts Wakefield’s MMR paper…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyM8puavSrE

Expert searchers stay current re: ’medical advances’

DSM-5 opens door to new addictions

Danny Williams released from US hospital Paxil & tamoxifen do not mix...

H1N1 treatment to cost Canadians $1.5b

30 athletes banned from Olympics

Agenda

• Module III

• Major ‘Expert searching’ concepts

• Health librarians as expert searchers

~ Break 7:15pm~

• Information sources • Exercises

• Expert searching • Examples

Rowell-Giustini – LIBR534

Rowell-Giustini – LIBR534

Health librarians in evidence-based practice

• Articulate health librarian’s role • Respond to individual needs of researchers as appropriate

• ‘Frame’ or formulate clinical question • Break question into categories, facets or ‘pearls’ during

a reference interview

• Teach search techniques• Discuss databases, indexing, ‘deep web’• How to limit for methodology i.e. publication types

• Check search strategies • Document• Collaborate on research & publication

Rowell-Giustini – LIBR534

Search uncertainties/ambiguities

Clinical question: “In children younger than 3-years old with AOM, what evidence

is available re: treatments (e.g. OTC drugs, antibiotics) given to relieve symptoms with few side effects when compared to watchful waiting?”

Domain(s): therapy

Clinical discipline(s): infectious diseases/pediatrics/otolaryngology

Expert searchers also account for …

. Domain or categories implied in question

.. Clinical discipline(s) or areas of practice

.. All concepts in the clinical question

. Quality filtering of the medical literature for ‘best evidence’

.. Filtered & unfiltered sources/ primary research may be required

. Follow-up with clinician

.. Restrategizing in F2F reference interview

Expert searching – what skills do you need?

What skills are required according to MLA? What do search experts (i.e. McGowan & Sampson) in health librarianship say?

Medical Library Association. “Role of expert searching”. JMLA 2005

”Systematic reviews need systematic searchers”. JMLA 2005

Are we mediators, teachers or expert searchers?Can we be all three?

Discuss in groups of 3-4 (20 mins.)

Rowell-Giustini – LIBR534

Rowell-Giustini – LIBR534

Expert and EBM search skills

1. Articulate five (5) steps of evidence-based clinical practice (EBCP) 2. Formulate good clinical questions 3. Understand hierarchies of evidence to search background – filtered sources 4. Search by clinical domain ie. diagnosis, etiology, prognosis, therapy 5. Describe expert role(s) assumed by librarians in EBCP 6. Teaching ability. Knowledge of learning styles, strategies & filters 7. Be familiar with basic research, methodologies, statistics and assessment 8. Engage in critical appraisal & reflective practices 9. Understand systematic review process 10. Assume expert roles to search Medline, Cinahl, Embase, Web of Science,

PsycINFO, ERIC, etc.); pre-appraised sources (Cochrane and related tools); searching grey literature (Google, Yahoo, Scirus & open search tools).

See Top Ten Reference Competencies for health librarians

Rowell-Giustini – LIBR534

Does expert searching save lives?

Johns Hopkins’ clinical trial volunteer Ellen Roche died in 2001 after she participated in a clinical trial for a

proposed asthma treatment...

Were health librarians consulted for this clinical trial [link]?

Rowell-Giustini – LIBR534

Document search - ‘reproducibility’

The following search was run on MEDLINE (Ovid) combined with terms from Phase 1 and 2 of the Cochrane highly sensitive search strategy for identifying RCTs (Lefebvre 2008). Modified terms were used to search the other databases (e.g. Embase):

eg. Medline (Ovid) Search String1 exp Otitis Media/ 2 exp Otitis Media with Effusion/ 3 exp Otitis Media, Suppurative/ 4 glue ear.mp. 5 otitis media.mp. 6 OME.mp. 7 AOM.mp. 8 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 9 exp Anti-Bacterial Agents/ 10 exp Drug Therapy/ 11 exp Anti-Infective Agents/ 12 antibiotic$.mp. 13 9 or 10 or 11 or 1214 8 and 13

[Intervention Review]Antibiotics for acute otitis media in children

Lefebvre C et al. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews. Wiley,

2008.

Rowell-Giustini – LIBR534

Document, document, document ….

See Expert searching on HLWIKI Canada 2010

Rowell-Giustini – LIBR534

Final tip:Reflect on your search skills

Some questions you might want to consider or reflect on:• What did you learn after you completed X search?• What would you change or do differently?• What surprised you about the search process?• What did you learn? • Did you learn on your own – or with others?• What worked for you? What didn’t?• What do you need to do to become an expert?

“Reflective practice involves careful consideration of one’s experience in learning…” Donald Schön The Reflective Practitioner 1983.