Task 1 – identify abstracts
Find the abstracts of articles related to the research question you have identified according to the PICO and evaluate the relevance of the article.
Scoring of article
PICO (all 4 components present – 4)
Hierarchy of evidence (1-5)
Full text: yes =1 and no =0
Ebppost's Blog 
March 7, 2010 at 3:51 pm |
I would like to share the experience I went through when I was doing my second task. The task involved
1. Searching for 10 articles directly related to my topic; this proved be not an easy task as there proved to be limited literature around the area which is intends to explore “the effect of occupational-related low back pain on the functional activities among manual workers in construction companies.” The unfortunate thing is that very little literature around Africa was found, probably one can attribute this to little African literature being published in electronic databases or because the search is English, and that most literature is not in English. The other challenge was that certain articles could not be accessed because the University doesn’t subscribe to the databases containing the articles.
2. Scoring of the articles; I made an interesting discovery during this task. Certain articles have poor abstracts and that certain abstracts do not actually depict the content of the article. The scoring of articles following the PICO was the determinant of a good or poor abstract and I would be correct to say it made me more efficient in selecting probably the better if not best articles related to my topic.
3. Screening of the articles; this needed a lot of attention as some databases bring in a lot of unnecessary and irrelevant articles. Therefore, one needed to concentrate and screen every article carefully.
In conclusion, the whole experience was though challenging but fruitful. Now looking forward to doing the next task.
March 11, 2010 at 3:08 pm |
• There were few studies available for the problem that was to be searched in accordance to the inclusion criteria.
• With some abstracts, it was difficult to get the sense of the study. Some of the abstracts were difficult to review since there was limitations in drawing out the specific conclusions of the study like finding the study design which forced the search in the in original article.
• When searching these databases, there were difficulties in the domain of rehabilitation since most them were containing small proportion relevant to rehabilitation, medical journals were yielding less studies on rehabilitation.
• All the abstracts got which were relevant to the study, were only available in only one database which was medline.
March 12, 2010 at 2:27 pm |
There was a concern that there are good articles that are not accessible because UWC does not subscribe to some of the database, however the interlibrary loan facility in level 4 of the main library is very efficient to get you any article of interest though its for a small fee. They are helpful give then a trial.
March 13, 2010 at 3:11 pm |
I’d like to know in identifying the articles that are not accessible, were you able to apply the PICO to the abstract succesfully and thus ensure that it was worthwhile going through the process of purchasing the article
March 15, 2010 at 7:41 pm |
Yes, I first had to be certain through the content of the abstract and the PICO score given, then i decided on purchasing. However not all articles could offer this certainity through the abstract and therefore could not confidently purchase them.
March 19, 2010 at 6:51 pm |
Something seems wrong.The blog just doesn’t seem to be working with me.I’ve tried so many different ways of getting started but it wont just work.Wonder what is going wrong.Simon.