In the paediatric population, do distraction techniques during immunisation result in less pain and anxiety?

Photo: James Gathany, Judy Schmidt, USCDCP

Formulating keywords for each concept

Once you have identified the most important PICO elements of your research question, the next step is to develop an extensive list of synonyms, related terms, abbreviations and spelling variations, concept by concept. The search terms can be located as a result of your background reading, checking subject-specific dictionaries, encyclopedias, subject headings and text mining tools. 

Concept mapping tools can be particularly useful for this stage. You might start your search broadly, with just a few keywords, and then add more once you see the scope of the literature. 

If the initial search doesn't produce many results, you can play with removing some keywords and adding different terms identified within the literature as the search progresses. The more relevant and appropriate keywords are, the more comprehensive the search strategy will be.

The search template below shows the non-exhaustive list of our keyword suggestions.  

Text mining: Identification of keywords

When developing a comprehensive list of search terms, the following tools may be useful to explore:

For a more comprehensive list of  tools available for mining text visit the JCU Systematic Review Guide.