Searching for Evidence: Fish Oil Efficacy for Osteoarthritis in Women

This assignment examines the effectiveness of fish oil as a treatment for osteoarthritis in older women, focusing on the clinical scenario of Peggy. The study utilizes the PICO framework and search terms related to knee pain, omega-3, and NSAIDs, employing EMBASE and Medline databases. The paper outlines the search strategies, including the use of keywords, alternative words, and search modes within the databases. It compares the features and coverage of Medline and EMBASE, highlighting their respective strengths in providing relevant literature. The results indicate the availability of literature supporting the use of fish oil in alleviating osteoarthritis symptoms, and the study concludes that both databases offer reliable evidence for the intervention, with Medline's controlled vocabulary and Embase's extensive coverage being key differentiators. The assignment emphasizes the importance of evidence-based practice in determining effective treatment options for conditions like osteoarthritis.

Running head: SEARCHING FOR EVIDENCE 1
Searching for Evidence
Name
Institution

SEARCHING FOR EVIDENCE 2
Searching for Evidence
Introduction
The moment medications are utilized well, they have the potential to alleviate symptoms
which can compromise the physiological and physical health of an individual. Sometimes
medications are not utilized appropriately leading to complications. Osteoarthritis is a conditions
which affect joints and it forms part of painful experiences among old women. (Hill, et al.,
2015). However, fish oil has omega 3 supplements which studies have shown to ease
osteoarthritis. Even though its effectiveness is still under debate most people who have used fish
oil have recorded some great improvements (Chen, et al., 2016).
The study will be based on the table of Richardson-Tench et al. (2016) and different
parameters will be used to come up with search criteria. Two types of search databases will be
used. These are EMBASE and Medline. Their effectiveness will be outlined in regards to the
clinical scenario of Peggy who is suffering from osteoarthritis. In addition, the clinical question
which will be handled is if fish oil an effective treatment option in older women with
osteoarthritis

SEARCHING FOR EVIDENCE 3
Table 1
Key words/search terms/phrases Alternative words (OR)
P Knee pain, hand pain, Work-related joint
muscle pain
Primary prevention,
secondary prevention
I ALA, EPA/DHA Osteoarthritis, omega 3 Strength training of the
painful muscle,
C Diets, other oils (isocaloric) Rest, exercise, surgery, herbal
medicine, traditional
physiotherapy
O Pain relief, improvement in walking condition Decrease joint stiffness,
decreased joint tenderness,
Side effects Belching,
heartburn, stools, rash,
and nosebleeds). Elimination
of NSAID

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Table 2
ACTION SEARCH
MODE
RESULTS LIMITERS/EXPANDERS
S1 therapy “Therapy
interventions”,
and, or
834 Age group, Research
S2 prevention “Prevention
strategies” and,
not, or
943 Publication date, Age
group, Evidence based
practice
S3 diagnosis Or, not, and 738 Research
S4 prognosis And, not 1344 Evidence based practice
S5 drug therapy
problem
And, not “drug
therapy problem”
646 Publication type, Evidence
based practice
S6 chronic care
improvement"
And, or 890 Age group, Evidence
based practice
The two search databases are Medline and EMBASE
Medline

SEARCHING FOR EVIDENCE 5
This is one of the best search databases which offer the best outcome. It is a national
library of medicine which has a wide coverage since 1946. It has got over 22 million records
from 5600 of which majorly comes from the United States journals. It covers medical and
biomedical sciences thus providing a quick search for information related to fish oil. It has high-
quality scientific content which is fed based on the guidelines outlined in NLM fact sheet (Ji &
Yen, 2015). In addition, this particular database is directly searchable via NLM as one of the
subsets of PubMed. It is very unique from the other databases because it has the added value of
utilizing the NLM controlled vocabulary for such as medical subject headings. It is available
through subscription of a number of interfaces
Embase
It has a wide coverage back to 1947 and selectively to 1902. This particular database
contains more than twenty-nine million records from more than 8500 journals which are
gathered from more than 90 countries in the world. It encompasses all Medline and other two
thousand extra titles which also include more than 260000 conference contracts (Qi et al., 2013).
The database covers journals with subjects in such as medicine, pharmacy, and drug.
It is advanced search with guided mapping of main words to Emtree. It entails basic
natural language search synonyms and relevance ranking. The database has got extensive
limiting options which involve types of EBM, drug administration routes, and clinical trials. It
has other features such as emails alerts, RSS feeds and save searches. However, it is very
possible for one to export citations to Endnote. One is able to pick the recent articles and even
the conference papers with extensive search limitation options.

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Relevance
The outcome indicated that there are lots of literature which can be found to support the
idea of using fish oil in relieving osteoarthritis among older women (Hamlin et al., 2016). In
regards to PICO, the search articles had terms such as pain, ALA, EPA/DHA Osteoarthritis,
omega 3 and NSAID. The database had limited options and this offered refined search criteria
for the information. Phrases and connectors were used as search modes and it assisted in getting
information much quicker (DiCenso et al., 2014)
.
Conclusions
The use of fish oil is a fundamental approach by Peggy to solve her issue on
osteoarthritis. Different databases have a different outcome but ultimately, the one with the
reliable outcome is the most preferred one. In regards to the used databases, it is important to
note that they offered a variety of results which were reliable and come up with much evidence
that Peggy was on the right intervention strategy.
However, Medline and Embase databases had distinctive features which excluded them
from the other search data bases. For instance, Medline very unique from the other databases
because it has the added value of utilizing the NLM controlled vocabulary for such as medical
subject headings. It is available through subscription of a number of interfaces. Embase, on the
other hand, encompasses all Medline and other covers journals with subjects in such as medicine,
pharmacy and drug.

SEARCHING FOR EVIDENCE 7
References
Chen, J. S., Hill, C. L., Lester, S., Ruediger, C. D., Battersby, R., Jones, G., & March, L. M.
(2016). Supplementation with omega-3 fish oil has no effect on bone mineral density in
adults with knee osteoarthritis: a 2-year randomized controlled trial. Osteoporosis
International, 27(5), 1897-1905.
DiCenso, A., Guyatt, G., & Ciliska, D. (2014). Evidence-Based Nursing-E-Book: A Guide to
Clinical Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Hamlin, L., Davies, M., Richardson-Tench, M., & Sutherland-Fraser, S. (2016). Perioperative
Nursing-EBook-epub: An Introduction. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Hill, C. L., March, L. M., Aitken, D., Lester, S. E., Battersby, R., Hynes, K., & Jones, G. (2015).
Fish oil in knee osteoarthritis: a randomised clinical trial of low dose versus high
dose. Annals of the rheumatic diseases, annrheumdis-2014.
Ji, X., & Yen, P. Y. (2015). Using MEDLINE elemental similarity to assist in the article
screening process for systematic reviews. JMIR medical informatics, 3(3).
Qi, X., Yang, M., Ren, W., Jia, J., Wang, J., Han, G., & Fan, D. (2013). Find duplicates among
the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library Databases in systematic review. PLoS
One, 8(8), e71838.