title: How to get the most from the medical literature: searching the medical literature effectively.
abstract: Different clinical questions are best answered using different study designs. This paper describes the best methods for finding relevant studies for well-framed clinical questions. We focus on which database is best to search to answer your question, describe the structure of effective search strategies and explore ways to develop appropriate search terms. We illustrate these with sensitive and specific search strategies to answer different clinical questions arising from a hypothetical clinical scenario typical of a nephrologist's everyday practice.
authors.affiliation: Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. angela.webster@gmail.com
authors.forename: Angela C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Webster
authors.forename: Nicholas B
authors.initials: NB
authors.lastname: Cross
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.forename: Jonathan C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Craig
mesh_terms: D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D009398:Nephrology; D012196:Review Literature as Topic