An essential element of evidence-based practice is searching to find the best high-quality research to answer your clinical questions. Despite the importance of searching, just one in three physiotherapists perform a database search each month. Skill is an obstacle to searching. Physiotherapists may do more searching if they could increase their competency and efficiency.
PEDro provides easy access to over 53,000 articles evaluating the effects of physiotherapy interventions. Throughout 2021 we ran the You Ask #PEDroAnswers campaign to help physiotherapists to improve their searching skills using the PEDro Advanced Search. The campaign was supported by World Physiotherapy, the Australian Physiotherapy Association, the Asociación Española de Fisioterapeutas, Physio Deutschland, the Società Italiana Fisioterapia and the Société Française de Physiothérapie.
Each month we shared short videos illustrating how to use the PEDro Advanced Search to find high-quality research to answer clinical questions submitted by the global physiotherapy community. You can watch all 10 search videos at https://pedro.org.au/english/learn/you-ask-pedro-answers/#part-2.
Throughout 2021 we also shared 10 tips on how to use the PEDro Advanced Search:
- 1. ask a PICO question before you search
- 2. don’t enter search terms for each element of the PICO question
- 3. use the PEDro Advanced Search (not Simple)
- 4. use wildcards (truncation)
- 5. use phrase searching
- 6. don’t use Boolean operators
- 7. if you get too many search results …
- 8. if you get too few search results …
- 9. screen titles first, then look at abstracts
- 10. access full text using links in PEDro
You can find out more about these tips at https://pedro.org.au/english/learn/you-ask-pedro-answers/#part-3.
We hope the You Ask #PEDroAnswers campaign has helped you to develop your searching skills.
