PICO Study: Green Tea's Effectiveness in Cancer Prevention for Women

This assignment presents a PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) study investigating the impact of green tea consumption on cancer prevention, specifically in young women. The study formulates a PICO question to examine whether drinking green tea prevents cancer compared to drinking black tea. It highlights the use of two key databases, Cinahl and Medline, for evidence-based practice, detailing search strategies, including the use of limiters, expanders, and Boolean operators. The assignment analyzes research articles, including a 2009 study by Schneider and Segre that suggests a reduction in breast and colorectal cancer risks with green tea intake, and a 2015 study by Fujiki et al. that indicates a delay in cancer development. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of using appropriate databases in the nursing field to obtain authentic papers and provide correct strategies for the PICO question.

Running head: GREEN TEA USE IN CANCER
GREEN TEA USE IN CANCER
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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GREEN TEA USE IN CANCER
Introduction:
Green tea is believed in the modern times to possess a therapeutic effect in reliving form a
number of physical ailments like digestive symptoms, headaches, prevention of heart disorders
and also weight loss and mental awareness. However, it effectivity against cancer is still a
question and hence this Pico study will help to address this concern effectively.
Key words/search
terms/phrases
Alternative words/spelling
P Young women, women of
less age, women who are
young, women in youth
adolescent and young adult
women, women within age
limit of 30, unmarried women
I Drinking green tea, green tea, Taking in green tea
C Black tea, drinking in black
tea
Normal tea, regular tea, tea
without milk
O Cancer prevention, prevent
cancer, prevention of cancer
Keeps away cancer, no
chance of cancer, cancer
protection, protection from
cancer

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GREEN TEA USE IN CANCER
Therefore, the PICO questions that would be formed from the above table is
“Does drinking of green tea prevent cancer in young women in comparison to women who
drinks black tea?
Two important databases that are often preferred by nursing professionals all over the
world to carry out evidence based practices are Cinahl and Medline. Cinahl is mainly a database
whose full name is Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (McGinn et
al., 2016). It mainly acts as an index of English language as well as other selected language
journal articles which remain based on allied health, nursing, healthcare and biomedicine
(Aromataris & Ritano, 2014). This site contain authentic papers of renowned researchers and
published centers and has been provided on the Web by EBSCO Publishing, who decided to
make it visible exclusively to only EBSCOhost platform and not to others. The other database is
the Medline database whose full name is (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System
Online, or MEDLARS Online). It is a bibliographic database which mainly helps in providing
journal articles and books on life sciences and biomedical information. It contains important
articles that cover medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, healthcare and also veterinary
medicine (Beckles et al., 2013). It also provides information to biology and biochemistry with
molecular evolution. Out of the mentioned two databases, Cinahl is used to conduct literature
searches to find out evident searches for the Pico questions (Butler, Hall & Copnell, 2016).
Table 2:
Actions Search mode Results Limiters (or
expanders)
S1 Green tea AND 6 No limiter

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GREEN TEA USE IN CANCER
cancer AND young
women Expander “apply to
all”
S2 Green tea AND
cancer
2 Expander apply to all
Limiter published
form 2010 to 2011
S3 Green tea AND
cancer AND young
women
4 Expander apply to all
limit 2005 to 2017
S4 Green tea prevents
cancer
25 Limiter years from
1998 to 2007
Expander to all
S5 Green tea AND
prevention of cancer
5 Limiter years 1998 to
2010
Expander –to all text
types
S6 Young women, green
tea, cancer
40 Limiter – 1998 to
2017
Expander – to all

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GREEN TEA USE IN CANCER
types
Table 3:
Boolean operators truncations Wild card
and In, on Not used
or Of, for Not used
Different strategies were implemented in modifying the database according to the requirement of
the Pico question. The elements like limiters, expanders, truncations, Boolean operations and
others helped to get the most appropriate papers that helped to meet the criteria of the Pico
question. All the strategies applied made the search very narrow and therefore the entire work
became a lot easier. The articles which are obtained are nearest to the requirement of the Pico
question and helped to meet the concern successfully.
Schneider, C., & Segre, T. (2009). Green tea: potential health benefits. American family
physician, 79(7).
An article was found in the Cinahl named Green Tea: Potential Health Benefits published in the
year 2009 which was performed by Schneider and Segre. This article had stated that there have
been trials which have shown that there has been 20 percent reduction in the risk of breast cancer
in women who had taken green tea. The paper also stated that intake of green tea also helped in
the 18% reduction of colorectal cancer.

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GREEN TEA USE IN CANCER
Fujiki, H., Sueoka, E., Watanabe, T., & Suganuma, M. (2015). Primary cancer prevention
by green tea, and tertiary cancer prevention by the combination of green tea catechins and
anticancer compounds. Journal of cancer prevention, 20(1), 1.
Another article was also found which showed which was proposed by Fujiki et al., in the year
2015. Here the researchers have conducted a cohort study for about ten years. This had shown
that drinking 10 Japanese cups of tea per day helped in the delaying of cancer I human beings by
7.3 years among females and 3.2 years among males. Green tea along with tablets of green tea
helped in the reduction of colorectal adenomas in polypectomy patients by 51.2%
Conclusion:
By providing correct strategies in the different databases, proper articles can be got. However, it
should be kept in mind that proper databases in the nursing field should be used do that authentic
papers are available.

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GREEN TEA USE IN CANCER
References:
Aromataris, E., & Riitano, D. (2014). Systematic reviews: constructing a search strategy and
searching for evidence. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 114(5), 49-56.
Beckles, Z., Glover, S., Ashe, J., Stockton, S., Boynton, J., Lai, R., & Alderson, P. (2013).
Searching CINAHL did not add value to clinical questions posed in NICE
guidelines. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 66(9), 1051-1057.
Butler, A., Hall, H., & Copnell, B. (2016). A Guide to Writing a Qualitative Systematic Review Protocol to
Enhance Evidence‐Based Practice in Nursing and Health Care. Worldviews on Evidence
‐Based
Nursing, 13(3), 241-249.
Fujiki, H., Sueoka, E., Watanabe, T., & Suganuma, M. (2015). Primary cancer prevention by
green tea, and tertiary cancer prevention by the combination of green tea catechins and
anticancer compounds. Journal of cancer prevention, 20(1), 1.
McGinn, T., Taylor, B., McColgan, M., & McQuilkan, J. (2016). Social work literature
searching: Current issues with databases and online search engines. Research on Social
Work Practice, 26(3), 266-277.
Schneider, C., & Segre, T. (2009). Green tea: potential health benefits. American family
physician, 79(7).
Wright, K., Golder, S., & Lewis-Light, K. (2015). What value is the CINAHL database when searching for
systematic reviews of qualitative studies?. Systematic reviews, 4(1), 104.