HLSC122 Assessment 2: Searching Evidence for Clinical Question Report

This report details a student's approach to searching for evidence to answer a clinical question regarding the use of green tea and black tea in preventing cancer in young women. The assignment utilizes the PICO framework (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) to formulate the clinical question and identify key terms. The student explores alternative terms and employs Boolean operators, truncation, wildcard, and limiters to broaden and narrow the search within CINAHL Complete and PubMed databases. The report explains the rationale for selecting these databases and presents the search strategies and results, including the number of records found using different search terms and limiters. The student analyzes the relevance of the search results, discusses the mechanisms of action of tea components, and references key literature. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of evidence-based practice in healthcare and its role in providing effective patient care and efficient use of resources.

Student Name
Unit: HLSC122
Assessment 2: Searching for evidence
Word count:
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Introduction
In this assignment, I will demonstrate how I searched for evidence using a given clinical
question. The first step entailed identifying the key terms in the PICO question and finding
alternative words. When performing the search in the two selected databases, I used the main key
words in the PICO question and alternative terms to find relevant resources.
Search for evidence
Nurses should strive to search for the highest level of evidence to answer clinical
questions. This concept is supported by the fact that evidence-based practice (EBP) entails
searching for evidence and utilizing that evidence to make clinical decisions (Burns, Rohrich, &
Chung, 2011). PICO is an acronym for population, intervention, comparison and outcome and it
is used for diagnostic as well as treatment studies (Raich & Skelly, 2013). The key terms for the
clinical questions are (P) young women, I (green tea), (C) black tea, and (O) prevent cancer. I
would use these alternative words, young ladies, tea, malignancy and tumour.
The key words in the clinical question and alternative words would be used in
combination to ensure relevant sources (peer reviewed journals) are gotten for this study.
Moreover, search techniques such as Boolean operators, truncation, wildcard and limiters would
be used to broaden and narrow the search as desired. These keywords would help me to gather
sufficient records and information for determining whether green tea is better than black tea in
preventing cancer.
The best two databases that would be used to search for evidence based on the clinical
question are CINAHL Complete and PubMed. These two databases have been chosen because of
several reasons. CINAHL Complete allows users to get quick full-text access to peer reviewed
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journals and evidence-based care sheets. Additionally, CINAHL Complete has vast volumes of
literature that are helpful to nurses and allied health professionals. The database offers full text
access to about 1,300 journals, indexing for about 5,400 journals. It has searchable cited
references for approximately 1,500 journals. Users can have access to approximately 5.5 million
records (EBSCO, 2017). The Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature
(CINAHL) is also an effective tool for primary studies for qualitative evidence synthesis.
On the other hand, PubMed has been chosen because it specifically contains medical
literature. Most practitioners use this database for medical literature. PubMed is also desirable
because it indexes only peer reviewed biomedical literature. Further, PubMed offers free full-text
access to some top publications (Shariff, et al., 2013). Unlike other databases, PubMed offers
indexed information that is directly pertinent to physicians such as restricted vocabulary and
access to discipline-specific filters. CINAHL Complete and PubMed have various difference
based on the number of academic resources, ease of retrieval and limiters, but they would be
relevant to the search for evidence based on the identified keywords.
In this table, I will demonstrate how I performed a search using CINAHL complete. The
table is adapted from (Richardson-Tench, Taylor, Kermode, & Roberts, 2016).
Actions Search mode Results Limiters (or
expanders)
S1 Young women
AND cancer
Find all my search
terms
29,449 Scholarly (Peer
Reviewed) Journals
2012 - 2017
S2 Black tea AND
cancer
Find all my search
terms
2,816 Scholarly (Peer
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Reviewed) Journals
2012 - 2017
S3 Green tea and
Cancer
Find all my search
terms
4,147 Scholarly (Peer
Reviewed) Journals
2012 - 2017
S4 Young wom*
AND cancer AND
back tea
Find all my search
terms
1,370 Scholarly (Peer
Reviewed) Journals
2012 - 2017
S5 Young ladies
AND cancer AND
green tea
Find all my search
terms
472 Scholarly (Peer
Reviewed) Journals
2012 - 2017
S6 Young lad* AND
cancer AND green
tea
Find all my search
terms
164 Scholarly (Peer
Reviewed) Journals
2012 – 2017
The final search results were relevant to the PICO since they offered insights of the use of
both green tea and black tea in the prevention of cancer in young women. Some of the resources
explained the mechanism of action of catechins, which is found in tea. Most of the resources
expounded on the use of different plant polyphenols. Green tea is an abundant source of plant
polyphenols (OyetakinWhite, Tribout, & Baron, 2012). The sources also presented literature on
the integration of tea in the diet and the appropriate amounts. The results of the search would
help me to write a paper on the use of tea as a preventive measure to prevent the onset of cancer
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in young ladies. I have included the best two resources examples from the final search in the
reference list.
Conclusion
EBP is fundamental because it has an objective of providing the most effective care that
is available. Through EBP, patients have the chances of receiving the best possible care. Besides,
I have found EBP effective in promoting an attitude of inquiry in health professionals. In
conclusion, EBP ensures that finite health resources are utilized effectively, and that pertinent
evidence is considered when making clinical decisions.
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References
The best two resources
Miura, K., Hughes, M. B., Arovah, N. I., van der Pols, J. C., & Green, A. C. (2015). Black Tea
Consumption and Risk of Skin Cancer: An 11-Year Prospective Study. Nutrition &
Cancer, 67(7), 1049-1055.
Rasheed, I., Waheed, K., & Ejaz, S. (2016). Frequency of Cervical Pre-Malignancy in Pregnant
Women. Annals Of King Edward Medical University, 22(3), 207-210.
Other references
Burns, P., Rohrich, R., & Chung, K. (2011). The levels of evidence and their role in evidence-
based medicine. Plastic and reconstructive surgery , 128 (1), 305-310.
EBSCO. (2017). Access the Best and Most Current Nursing and Allied Health Literature .
Retrieved 8 31, 2017, from https://www.ebscohost.com/nursing/products/cinahl-
databases/cinahl-complete
OyetakinWhite, P., Tribout, H., & Baron, E. (2012). Protective mechanisms of green tea
polyphenols in skin. Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity , 560682.
Raich, A., & Skelly, A. (2013). Asking the right question: specifying your study question.
Evidence-based spine-care journal , 4 (02), 068-071.
Richardson-Tench, M., Taylor, B., Kermode, S., & Roberts, K. (2016). Inquiry in health care.
South Melbourne: Cengage Learning.
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