Library
& Knowledge Service
Literature Searching
The following guidance is designed to help you navigate research and enhance your information retrieval skills. Here, you'll find essential resources and tips to efficiently locate, evaluate, and utilise literature for your studies and professional development.
Plan your search
Your search should consider your research topic of question. Break down your topic into key concepts or categories to formulate a clear, focused question. Using a structured approach such as PICO can help you define and refine your question. You can access our step-by-step PICO guidance using the link below
The clinical question needs to identify:
Patient or population we intend to study
Intervention or treatment we plan to use
Comparison of one intervention to another
Outcome we anticipate
Search strategy checklist
Once you have your research question you can create a range of search terms:
Synonyms, e.g. aged; elderly
Acronyms, e.g. UTI
Differences in terminology across national boundaries, e.g. pediatrics/paediatrics.
Differences in spelling
Old/New terminology
Brand & generic names
Law & medical terminology
Also consider any limitations in your search:
Study type
Age range
Publication date
language...etc.
Search the Databases
You can search key healthcare databases through the links below, which provide access via the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub and directly through platform providers such as Ovid and EBSCO.
These include major resources such as MEDLINE and CINAHL, covering a wide range of clinical, nursing, allied health, and biomedical literature. Using these databases will help you identify high-quality research evidence, systematic reviews, and peer-reviewed journal articles to support clinical practice, service development, education, and decision-making.
Expand Your Search
If you’d like to broaden your search, the resources below provide access to additional research literature, grey literature, and evidence-based materials. These databases can help you identify systematic reviews, clinical guidance, academic publications, and hard-to-find research beyond standard search platforms.
Please note that access to the TRIP Pro version requires login via your NHS OpenAthens account.
Literature Searching Online Modules
These modules are designed to help you build confidence to search published literature for articles and evidence relevant to your work, study and research. The modules are short (each taking no more than 20 minutes to complete) and may be ‘dipped into’ for reference, or completed to obtain a certificate.
You can sign in using your NHS Open Athens account.
There are seven modules suitable for novice searchers and those wishing to refresh their knowledge:
Building the foundations
Module 1 Introduction to searching
Module 2 Where do I start searching?
Module 3 How do I start to develop a search strategy?
Developing the skills
Module 4 Too many results? How to narrow your search
Module 5 Too few results? How to broaden your search
Module 6 Searching with subject headings
Applying the skills
Module 7 Searching the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub and bibliographic databases