NURS 6052 Discussion: Searching Databases
Example 2
As healthcare providers progress with practice, the rise of clinical inquiry is inevitable, given the different clinical issues they face. According to Anvari et al. (2023), healthcare providers are also expected to identify best practices from research evidence apart from only using common practice.
Therefore, it is essential to beware of searching databases and how to maximize searches to ensure that the search results contain the required information on best practices related to the clinical issue. This discussion explores the clinical issue of using psychotherapy for depression, the PICOT question developed from the clinical issue, and the search results while using the PICOT question formula to search databases.
The selected clinical issue of interest is the effectiveness of psychotherapy, specifically the use of the group therapy approach in treating depression among adolescents. Depression, also known as major depressive disorder, is one of the most common mental illnesses affecting individuals of all ages and health populations (Oberste et al., 2020).
Different patients respond to depression treatment approaches differently (Bernaras et al., 2019). In addition, there are different treatment interventions and approaches for treating depression. Although the effectiveness of most of them is backed up by research and clinical trial evidence, it raises a clinical issue of which intervention or approach is best for use in treating specific patient populations (Fava et al., 2020).
The developed PICOT question is; Among youths and adolescents diagnosed with depression, is group therapy more effective in achieving symptom remission within three months compared to individual therapy? From this PICOT question, the selected key terms used in the search include depression, therapy, and adolescents.
The key phrases included “group therapy in treating depression among adolescents” and “comparison of group and individual therapy effectiveness in treating adolescents with depression.” I accessed the google scholar search engine from the library and used it to search and locate resources from different databases.
On the first search attempt using the keywords, the results entailed over 2.5 million articles, which were returned in 0.03 seconds. The search results entailed any relevant article, regardless of the year of publication. The articles were mixed, including original research articles, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.
The huge amount of search results is because the results included all the articles that had any of the keywords in the search. However, I continued to refine the search by developing complete key phrases and adding the Boolean operator “AND” to the key terms. The search results were narrowed down to produce fewer and more direct articles. Most of the articles included in these results were mainly original articles with the key phrases as the major focus.
The strategies I can make to increase the rigor and effectiveness of a database search on my PICO(T) question include searching one key phrase at a time, customizing my search to produce more direct results, and focusing on different parts of the PICOT question at a time. For example, when searching one key phrase at a time, I would divide the PICOT question into; group therapy effectiveness and therapies for treating depression among adolescents.
I would also customize my search settings to produce the most relevant results from a specific timeline, like the last 5 or 10 years. Finally, I can focus on different parts of the PICOT per search by searching the intervention, comparison, and outcomes separately. For example, the search would read “comparison of group and individual therapy in depression treatment.”
References
Anvari, S., Neumark, S., Jangra, R., Sandre, A., Pasumarthi, K., & Xenodemetropoulos, T. (2023). Best practices for the provision of virtual care: a systematic review of current guidelines. Telemedicine and e-Health, 29(1), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1089/tmj.2022.0004
Bernaras, E., Jaureguizar, J., & Garaigordobil, M. (2019). Child and adolescent depression: A review of theories, evaluation instruments, prevention programs, and treatments. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 543. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00543
Fava, G. A., Cosci, F., Guidi, J., & Rafanelli, C. (2020). The Deceptive Manifestations of Treatment Resistance in Depression: A New Look at the Problem. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 89(5), 265–273. https://doi.org/10.1159/000507227
