Planning your search terms
Define your research question
If you were researching the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating allergic rhinitis, you might begin with a research question that looks like the following.
Example research question
How effective is acupuncture in treating allergic rhinitis?
This question could be improved by utilising the PICO framework to look like this:
Improved example research question
In patients with allergic rhinitis is acupuncture compared with pharmacological treatment more effective in decreasing pain symptoms?
P (problem) = In patients with allergic rhinitis
I (intervention) = is acupuncture
C (comparator) = compared with pharmacological treatment
O (outcome) = more effective in decreasing pain symptoms?
Compiling a list of search terms
Let’s look at two of the concepts from the research question:
- allergic rhinitis
- acupuncture
When you start compiling a list of possible search terms you need to think of your own keywords, as well as the thesaurus (i.e. subject) terms used by each of the databases you will be searching.
The following table shows some keywords and thesaurus terms for allergic rhinitis and acupuncture. The thesaurus terms are MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) as used by the PubMed database. Thesaurus terms for other databases would be added to the list.
Database search terms
| Concepts | Allergic rhinitis | Acupuncture |
|---|---|---|
| Keywords | allergic rhinitis hayfever hay fever pollinosis rose cold rose fever perennial hayfever seasonal hayfever |
plum blossom ear acupuncture ear acupressure auricular therapy moxa laser acupuncture seven star needle electro-acupuncture electro acupuncture TENS transcutaneous nerve stimulation transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation electro-stimulation electro stimulation pharmacopuncture point injection |
| MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) |
rhinitis, allergic rhinitis, allergic, seasonal rhinitis, allergic, perennial respiratory hypersensitivity |
acupuncture meridians electroacupuncture moxibustion auriculotherapy acupressure acupuncture, ear acupuncture therapy acupuncture analgesia acupuncture points transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation |
