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Literature review

Hi, I’m new here.
I’m in my 3rd and final year.
I’m about to start my adult nursing literature review.
I have a topic in mind but how do I start? What do I include in this review?
What am I reviewing between papers?
Any help would be appreciated
Original post by Pigletfarm1
Hi, I’m new here.
I’m in my 3rd and final year.
I’m about to start my adult nursing literature review.
I have a topic in mind but how do I start? What do I include in this review?
What am I reviewing between papers?
Any help would be appreciated

Hey.

Have you had much guidance from your lecturers about the expectations of this lit review yet? Have they spoken to you about approaches to formulating a research question, gathering articles etc? Have you read many lit reviews (I found this was a great way to get my head around the process).

Usually they want you to show you can formulate a research question, search relevant databases sytematically and identify common themes or use data to answer your research question.

If you've got an idea of what you want to write about already, thats great. Start doing some informal searches of whats out there (I tend to use google scholar for this) to see whether there are specific areas within your topic of interest that you can find. This helps narrow your research question and see what literature there is out there to use. You may also find any key papers on the topic.

For structuring a formal search I tend to use the PICO method. This helps you to think about the search terms you want to use and structures the question you want answering. You should be searching more formal databases here, so CINAHL, MEDLINE etc. Theres a good explanation of what PICO is on this page by Exeter's libraries here: https://libguides.exeter.ac.uk/systematicreviews/searchstrategy

How you analyse your data depends on what your research question is. You might be comparing the effectiveness of outcomes in the papers you have, or you may be looking at common qualitative themes.

Make use of your university library, they're expetis in searching for and sifting through information. It's likely they have tutorials on this topic that you can access. Speak to a librarian or lok online to see if there's anything on offer. They can usually get a hold of papers that you may not be able to instantly access through your uni as well.
(edited 4 weeks ago)
Reply 2
Original post by moonkatt
Hey.
Have you had much guidance from your lecturers about the expectations of this lit review yet? Have they spoken to you about approaches to formulating a research question, gathering articles etc? Have you read many lit reviews (I found this was a great way to get my head around the process).
Usually they want you to show you can formulate a research question, search relevant databases sytematically and identify common themes or use data to answer your research question.
If you've got an idea of what you want to write about already, thats great. Start doing some informal searches of whats out there (I tend to use google scholar for this) to see whether there are specific areas within your topic of interest that you can find. This helps narrow your research question and see what literature there is out there to use. You may also find any key papers on the topic.
For structuring a formal search I tend to use the PICO method. This helps you to think about the search terms you want to use and structures the question you want answering. You should be searching more formal databases here, so CINAHL, MEDLINE etc. Theres a good explanation of what PICO is on this page by Exeter's libraries here: https://libguides.exeter.ac.uk/systematicreviews/searchstrategy
How you analyse your data depends on what your research question is. You might be comparing the effectiveness of outcomes in the papers you have, or you may be looking at common qualitative themes.
Make use of your university library, they're expetis in searching for and sifting through information. It's likely they have tutorials on this topic that you can access. Speak to a librarian or lok online to see if there's anything on offer. They can usually get a hold of papers that you may not be able to instantly access through your uni as well.

Thank you so much. We have only had a module launch at the minute. I thought if I could get my head around it early on I would get a good head start with reading. I think I have an overall topic but obviously need to narrow it down, hopefully the more I read this will come naturally. You have definitely helped with where to start searching and start to look at library workshops for sure.
Thanks again

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