Evidence for Length of Compression Stockings in Pre and Postoperative Patients

This document provides a PICO worksheet and search strategy for finding evidence supporting the length of compression stockings in pre and postoperative patients. The goal is to avoid postoperative complications. The document also includes a screenshot of the search conducted in a database.

Case : You are working on a surgical ward where you encounter pre- and post-operative patients. You
notice that some doctors order knee length compression stockings while others order thigh length
compression stockings for your patients. You are concerned about the diversity of practice and decide
to search the literature to find any evidence supporting the length of stockings.
ASSESSMENT ONE: SUBMISSION TEMPLATE
Please complete your assessment activities in the following pages and submit this into
Turnitin:
 PICO Worksheet
 Search Strategy Table
 A print screen of your search in Medline (must be readable in Turnitin).
PICO Worksheet – Development of PICO and terms to be used in search (2 marks)
1. Use the following categories to help define your problem and what you are looking at in simple terms
PICO: Patient/Problem, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome. (Remember to use your readings to
help you if you are unsure)
Patient/Problem: Pre and postoperative patients
Intervention: Knee length compressive stockings
Comparison: thigh length compression stockings
Outcome: avoid postoperative complications
2. Now use these terms from the question above to create your PICO research questions that you have
a clear purpose for your search (1 mark).
In (P) Pre and postoperative patients does (I) Knee length compressive stockings compared with (C)
thigh length compression stockings improve/reduce (O) avoid postoperative complications?
3. What type of clinical question do you think this PICO question is? (0.5 mark)
□ Therapeutic □ Aetiology □ Diagnostic □ prognostic □ Meaning
4. The table below will help you to think of the other terms that you might also like to look up when
searching for evidence to help you answer your question – this is part of basic planning for a research
search (2 marks).
We ask you to look up alternative terms because sometimes articles from health systems call things different names – for
example, in Australia we sometimes us the term ‘community nurses’, but in the UK they often talk about ‘district nurses’ – if
you only searched under ‘district nurse’ you’d miss all the articles which used the other term – you would be missing some
of the picture!

Population Intervention Comparison
(not commonly used in
actual database search
strategy)
Outcome
(not commonly used in
actual database search
strategy)
What is your
population? Main
search term:
Pre and postoperative
patients
What other terms
might have been used?
Alternative search
terms:
inpatients
What is your
intervention? Main
search term:
Knee length
compressive stockings
What other terms
might have been used?
Alternative search
terms:
Knee length ant
embolism stockings
What is your
comparison? Main
search term:
thigh length
compression stockings
What other terms
might have been used?
Alternative search
terms:
Thigh length ant
embolism stockings
What is your outcome?
Main search term:
avoid postoperative
complications
What other terms
might have been used?
Alternative search
terms:
Avoid morbidity
5. Is there a particular group of people that you want to look at? List here any inclusion criteria you
might use to refine your search if you have too many papers (0.5 mark):
Gender: NIL Age Range: Above 40 years
Publication Dates: Later than 1.1.2009 Language: English
6. What kind of study/studies do you think would best answer your question? Select here which type of
article you might want to access. You can also use these to refine your search if you have a lot of papers
(0.5 mark).
□ Cohort Study
□ Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)
□ Case-control Study/Case Series
□ Systematic Reviews of RCTs
□ Qualitative Study
□ Economic Evaluation
□ Quantitative Study
Systematic Search Plan (this is what we call a Search Strategy)
7. Now that you have decided on WHAT you will be searching, you need to put down a plan of HOW you
will search for your articles. This helps you and others to see how you got your evidence and how you
made sure you got the best evidence to help you decide on your clinical action (3 marks).
Using the PICO terms in your table, enter each term in a row (group them together under the PICO categories). You can add
extra rows or delete them as appropriate.
Plan for combing your searches using ‘or’ and ‘and’ Boolean operators.

Key terms:
1 What is your patient? Main search term:
Pre and postoperative patients
2 What is your intervention? Main search term:
Knee length compressive stockings
3 What is your comparison? Main search term:
thigh length compression stockings
4 What is your outcome? Main search term:
avoid postoperative complications
5 What is your population? Alternative search terms:
inpatients
6 What is your intervention? Alternative search terms:
Knee length ant embolism stockings
7 What is your comparison? Alternative search terms
Thigh length ant embolism stockings
8 What is your outcome? Alternative search terms:
Avoid morbidity
9
10
11
12 Pre and postoperative patients or inpatients(P) Knee length compressive stockings or knee
length ant embolism stockings (I) thigh length compressive stockings or thigh length ant
embolism stockings (C ) avoid postoperative complications or avoid morbidity (O)
13 __ OR___OR___OR___ (combine alternate terms for same topic)
14 ____AND____
OR = combine alternate terms for the same topic – to get as many potential papers as possible!
AND = combine the groups of topics to get papers which cover ALL the terms!

8. The final step is to paste in a picture (screenshot/screengrab) of the search that you did in the
database. The picture has to be readable!!! (2 marks).
In providing this you show your tutor that you are able to take your strategy and apply this into a
database. You also show us that you understand the systematic approach to searching and your
understanding of how to use OR and AND as tools to draw together the articles you are interested in. You
can use limits, but you would only do this if you wanted to refine your search because you had too many
papers to search through.