Practice Exercise 3 - Finding Quantitative studies
One strategy is to search for a particular type of primary research article that in most cases uses a quantitative design: the Clinical Trial.
| A) | Start by going to the CINAHL Advanced Search screen and typing clinical trial in the first search box. Then change the field on the right to PT Publication type. This searches for the term Clinical Trial in the Publication Type field. |
| B) | Add a keyword related to a symptom, patient population, or nursing intervention in the second box. In this case, type exercis* and women (keep in mind that you could also leave it blank to browse for articles). |
| C) | Scroll down and check the boxes next to ‘Research Article’, Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals, and ‘English Language’. |
| D) | In the third line, type Nurs* in the box (using the asterisk * at the end of a root word will also search for variations of the term like nurse, nurses, or nursing) and change the field to AF Author Affiliation. |
Click Search.
Remember to set the “Page Options” to Detailed (then click Apply) to display the entire abstract for each record in the results list for easy screening.
Go to Question 8 in the quiz.
Note: As with all of the other methods, make sure to scan the article record and read the abstract to make sure that you are dealing with a primary research study and not an unwanted article type like a systematic review or an educational/informational article.
Your should retrieve about 102 results. Click on the title “Effectiveness of a theory-based tailored mHealth physical activity intervention for women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer: A quasi-experimental study.”
Click on the Find@UCF on the left hand side to see if the full text is available in another database.
Remember: Sometimes when you click on a database listed in Find Full Text to retrieve a full-text article, it doesn’t work. If this happens, go to the UCF Libraries homepage and select Online Journals. Then search for the journal title (i.e. - Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing) and try the different options listed under Full Text Sources to find a database with the full text. You may have to browse by year, volume, issue, and page numbers to locate the specific article. If that doesn't work or if you get stuck, please contact your embedded librarian, or the Ask-A-Librarian service for further assistance.
E) On the next screen, you should see several options to retrieve the full text including Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals Complete, DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journal Collection, and PubMed Central Open Access. Any of these databases should lead you to the full text.
Close out the full text and return to CINAHL (it may be in a different window). Then click on the ‘New Search’ link in the top left corner when finished.
Now let's try an expanded strategy by using some subject headings related to specific data analyses and research design methods to capture articles with a high probability of being quantitative studies.
Go to Questions 9 -15 in the quiz.
F) Start a new search and type Data Analysis in the search line and check the Suggest Subject Terms box.
G) On the next screen, scroll "Data Analysis, Statistical" and "Data Analysis Software" and explode each term by check the boxes on the right hand side like so:
H) Then click the Browse Additional Terms link at the bottom of the page. Type quantitative articles in the box and click Browse.
I) On the next screen, click on the blue hyperlink for Quantitative Studies to go to the hierarchical view.
J) Check the Quantitative Studies box and then explode the Experimental Studies and Quasi-Experimental Studies subject headings like so:
When finished, click on Search Database in the upper right hand corner.
K) Add the term nurs* in the second line. In the third line, type interrupt* OR distract*. Add a fourth line (using the + sign) and type medication error* OR drug error*. Here is a screenshot of the search:
L) Click on Advanced Search. Scroll down under ‘Limit Your Results’ and check the Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals, English Language and Research Article boxes. Change the dates to 2019 - 2025. Click Search.
Find and click on the article "Prevalence and Determinants of Medication Administration Errors in Clinical Wards: A Two‐Centre Prospective Observational Study" in the results list.
Scroll down to Major Subjects and Minor Subjects. These terms are the subject headings for this article. So if you see the ultimate article, look to see what terms it is tagged with and add them to the search in the appropriate line if relevant (remember each line in the above search represents a group of terms that act as synonyms – like those that belong in the same circle in a Venn diagram).
Proceed to the next section when finished.