P4R2W2: Rally the troops

From Monaco, Nelson

I'm back in Nelson for PHTY459, our research project.

You can spend a whole day searching if you don't know how to search. This was our group on Tuesday... we would search like: 

(‘Falls’ OR 'Trip' OR 'Slip' OR ‘Fall efficacy’ OR ‘Falls Strateg*’ OR ‘Falls prevention’ OR ‘Fall Intervention’) AND (‘Self management’ OR ‘support worker’ OR ‘care giver’ OR ‘Family Support’ OR ‘carer’ OR 'Spouse' OR 'Supportive Assistance') AND (‘Home’ OR ‘Residential’ OR ‘Community’ OR ‘Independent living’) AND (‘Stroke’ OR ‘Cerebrovascular Accident’ OR ‘Parkinson*’ OR ‘Multiple sclerosis’ OR ‘Cerebellar Stroke’ OR ‘cerebral palsy’ OR ‘Falls risk’ OR ‘Disability’ OR ‘Neurological condition’)

=1,542,732 results... most of which are not useful at all.

But really, to get the best results you have to understand how the database is put together... there lies the beauty of MeSH terms. Each database has different filing systems / coding, so you will need to find MeSH terms for each database you look at. They look like this:

(MESH.EXACT("Caregivers") OR MESH.EXACT("Health Personnel")) AND (MESH.EXACT("Self Care") OR MESH.EXACT("Rehabilitation") OR MJMESH.EXACT("Self Care")) AND (MJMESH.EXACT("Accidental Falls")) 

= 5 results... most of which are exactly what we're looking for.

But it's important to recognise that each database MeSH terms are different... here's another database search using MeSH:

("health personnel"[MeSH Terms] or care giver[Text Terms]) AND ("fall prevention"MeSH Terms OR fall prevention[Text Word]) AND Self-management

= 11 results... again, most of these are exactly what we're looking for!

 We've got this party started.

On Wednesday I took my flatmate for a hike up to Angelus Hut in the Nelson Lakes National Park.

 

Friday was back to research and group / Skype meetings! We're still trying to fine-tune our database searches and are thinking about what tools we will use to evaluate our articles.

...
And when the university access to the database fails (not sure why...) it's time to be entertained by comics! Haha!!