Search strategy identification and implementation

SEARCH STRATEGY

Identify Search Strategy

The first step in the data search process is to identify the databases or digital libraries that one intends to use in the research. In this case, the libraries of interest will mainly be medical libraries, although the researcher will also consult non-medical databases such as Emerald Insights and Business eBooks. The intervention – medication safety education – is a multidisciplinary initiative, implying that the study will consider articles from both the medical and nursing realms (Stillwel et al., 2010). PubMed will be used to search for medical literature, while CINAHL will be used to source for nursing-relate articles (Stillwell et al., 2010). On each selected database, the researcher will search for relevant articles using the following key words drawn from the PICOT question: medication errors, medication safety education, alarm notification system. As Stillwell et al. (2010) advise, the search will be refined by using the Boolean conductor AND for combine searches, and limiting the final search to studies written in English and focused on humans (Stillwell et al., 2010). Since the practice problem assesses the effectiveness of an intervention, the search will prioritize meta analyses and systematic reviews, which offer the highest level of evidence (Davey et al., 2022). However, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) will also be considered if necessary (Davey et al., 2022).

The researcher reckons that the identified search criteria will be beneficial as it prevents one from having to search many databases for articles, which may be time consuming. The criteria specifies the main databases to be used and gives reasons for the same. The search strategy outlined above is also beneficial to the PICOT question because it picks databases from both nursing and medicine. The proposed practice problem assesses the effectiveness of an intervention – medication safety education – which requires interdisciplinary effort and hence, a search strategy that draws from both medical and nursing databases is highly appropriate (Stillwell et al., 2010).