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Nursing Research: Refining Your Search Topic

This guide will help students in Nursing Research find resources for their research needs.

Refining Your Search Topic

Too Narrow a Topic
Will give you few articles or web pages.

Too Broad a Topic
Will give you too many articles or web pages to sift through. But, a broad search of the literature may actually help you narrow your search - it'll give you ideas on different aspects of your research question.

Putting what you're interested in into the PICO format might help you with your research question.

P - Population - as in what population will you be studying. children, adults, teens...and what is the medical issue?
I - Intervention - as in a drug therapy or treatment.
C - Comparison - as in comparing the intervention with a different drug therapy, treatment, etc.
O - Outcome - as in did the intervention provide relief?
T - Time element or Type of study (optional)

For Example:

You're interested in finding some articles/web pages on diabetes as it relates to obesity.

Maybe you're really interested in diabetes in obese children ages 6-12.
And, maybe you're interested in how to treat diabetes in obese children - diet, medication, or weight loss...
In children, is the diabetes eliminated once the child is no longer obese? Or does the child continue to have diabetes?

Play around with your topic and research question until it fits what you're looking for.

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