Library Skills@UCL for NHS

Before you start searching for information to inform your research, think carefully about your research question, establish the key concepts and plan your search terms.

First, look at the title of your topic and try to identify the main keywords and concepts.

For example, if your search topic is:

The management (or measurement) of diabetes in advanced chronic kidney disease

The main concepts here would be diabetes and advanced chronic kidney disease.

To carry out a thorough, effective search, think of the various ways your concept might be described.

Are there any synonyms, alternative or similar ways of referring to the keywords and concepts?

• Some synonyms for advanced chronic kidney disease could be chronic renal disease or chronic renal insufficiency.

Are there any relevant acronyms or abbreviations?

• For example, the United Kingdom has the acronym UK. Electronic cigarettes can be abbreviated to e-cigarettes.

Can any of the keywords be made plural?

• For example, child and children.

Are there any narrower (more specific) or wider (more general) terms to consider?

• For example, boy or girl are narrower terms than child.

Some words are spelt differently in American and UK English. There may also be some variations in terminology used in different cultures or countries.

• For example, physiotherapy (UK) and physical therapy (US).

Spending some time coming up with these alternative search terms will make your search more effective and improve your set of results.

Once you've considered carefully what your search terms are, it is time to combine them together to build your search. 

See Developing your search for information about how to do this effectively.

Various frameworks may help you to identify the key concepts of your search topic, and later establish the search terms you will use to find relevant literature. Two such frameworks are PICO (for quantitative research, or research involving an intervention) and PEO (for qualitative research).

PICO divides your topic into four concepts:

P: the Patient / Population /Problem you are interested in.

I: the Intervention you are examining

C: a Comparison you might want to use

O: Outcomes you are hoping to achieve, or avoid

PEO can be useful for qualitative studies, where the intervention is an exposure (usually to something harmful or risky), and there is no comparator:

P: Population, Patient or Problem 

E: Exposure 

O: Outcome

Once you have identified your key concepts (either two or more), then you can develop this further, to express the concepts using the expected terminology in the literature; i.e. determine several alternative search terms for each concept (synonyms and different word endings).