Literature search in volves searching and compiling all the literature (books, journals, and more) available on a specific topic.

Literature search is one that provides the information you need to find the types of articles that will help you with clinical practice or research. Literature search is a combination of an art and science.

Literature search is critical component for any evidence-based project. It helps you to understand the complexity of a clinical issue, gives insight into the scope of a problem, and provides you with best treatment approaches and the best available evidence on the topic.

Literature search is a systematic and well-organized search from the already published data to identify a breadth of good quality references on a specific topic. The reasons for conducting literature search are numerous that include drawing information for making evidence-based guidelines, a step in the research method.

Objective

However, the main purpose of a thorough literature search is to formulate a research question by evaluating the available literature with an eye on gaps still amenable to further research.

Research problem is typically a topic of interest and of some familiarity to the researcher. It needs to be channelized by focusing on information yet to be explored.

Methodology

Literature search methodology involves several steps

• Search methodology
• Screening
• Article inclusion/exclusion criteria
• Summary writing
• Appraisal to the summary

Search Methodology:

Identify the research question: Start by clearly defining the research question and identifying the key concepts and terms that are relevant to the question.

Select the databases: Determine which databases are most appropriate for the research question. Common databases used in literature search include PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar.

Develop the search terms: Identify relevant terms and synonyms for the key concepts in the research question. These terms should be specific and not too broad or too narrow. Consider using MeSH terms or other controlled vocabulary terms.

Combine the search terms: Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to combine the search terms, and use truncation or wildcards to capture different forms of the search terms. Be sure to account for variations in spelling, pluralization, and word order.

Screening Article and Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria:

Run the search: Run the search strategy in each database and record the number of hits.

Screen the results: Screen the titles and abstracts of the search results to identify potentially relevant studies. Exclude studies that clearly do not meet the inclusion criteria.

After you have completed your database and grey literature searches, and identified other papers through hand-searching, you will need to screen the titles and abstracts to determine if they meet the criteria for inclusion. These criteria should be pre-defined (i.e. stated in your protocol before you begin the searches). Inclusion criteria include:

• Date range of publication
• Study design type
• Whether a study focuses on your specific disease, condition, or patient population
• Whether a study focuses mainly on your specific intervention

Generally, articles are screened against these criteria. The full text for each article in the, which will leave you with two groups of articles: Include (those which meet all inclusion criteria) and Exclude (those which do not meet at least one of the inclusion criteria).

Full-text articles: Obtain the full text of potentially relevant studies and screen them to determine eligibility for inclusion in the systematic review.
Update the search: Repeat the search periodically to identify any new studies published since the initial search.

Summary Writing:

Summarizing an article can be a challenging task, whatever your purpose, you can use some strategies to help you create a concise and accurate summary that reflects the original source. Here are some steps to follow when summarizing the article.

Read the article carefully

The first step is to read the article carefully and understand its main idea, purpose, and tone. You can use some techniques to help you read critically, such as skimming the title, abstract, introduction, and conclusion, looking for keywords and phrases, and identifying the main arguments and evidence. As you read, you can also take notes of the main points and any important details that support them. You can use your own words or quotes.

Identify the main points

The next step is to identify the main points of the article and how they relate to each other. You can use your notes to help you find the main points, or you can look for topic sentences, headings, or summaries that indicate the main idea of each section. You can also identify some questions, such as what is the author’s thesis, what are the main arguments or claims, and what are the main conclusions or implications. You can write down the main points in a list or an outline, using keywords or phrases.

Write the summary

The final step is to compose a summary using your own words and the main points you identified.

A perfect summary can be done by containing the sections like

• Title
• Objective
• Demographic details
• Methodology
• Actual results
• Conclusion.

Appraisal of The Summary

Appraise the written summary according to the sections mentioned in the protocol like,

• Device
• Device Application
• Reports (Sufficient Info)
• Appropriate patient group
• Study Design
• Out Come (Intended Use)
• Follow up
• Statistical Significance
• Clinical Significance