Your systematic review or systematic literature review will be defined by your research question. A well formulated question will help:
There are different models you can use to structure help structure a question, which will help with searching.
A model commonly used for clinical and healthcare related questions, often, although not exclusively, used for searching for quantitively designed studies.
Example question: Does handwashing reduce hospital acquired infections in elderly people?
| P | Population | Any characteristic that define your patient or population group. | Elderly people |
| I | Intervention | What do you want to do with the patient or population? | Handwashing |
| C | Comparison (if relevant) | What are the alternatives to the main intervention? | No handwashing |
| O | Outcome | Any specific outcomes or effects of your intervention. | Reduced infection |
Richardson, W.S., Wilson, M.C, Nishikawa, J. and Hayward, R.S.A. (1995) 'The well-built clinical question: a key to evidence-based decisions.' ACP Journal Club, 123(3) pp. A12
A model useful for qualitative and mixed method type research questions.
Example question: What are young parents’ experiences of attending antenatal education? (Cooke et al., 2012)
| S | Sample | The group you are focusing on. | Young parents |
| P of I | Phenomenon of interest | The behaviour or experience your research is examining. | Experience of antenatal classes |
| D | Design | How the research will be carried out? | Interviews, questionnaires |
| E | Evaluation | What are the outcomes you are measuring? | Experiences and views |
| R | Research type | What is the research type you are undertaking? | Qualitative |
Cooke, A., Smith, D. and Booth, A. (2012) 'Beyond PICO: the SPIDER tool for qualitative evidence synthesis.' Qualitative Health Research, 22(10) pp. 1435-1443
A model useful for qualitative and mixed method type research questions.
Example question: How effective is mindfulness used as a cognitive therapy in a counseling service in improving the attitudes of patients diagnosed with cancer?
| S | Setting | The setting or the context | Counseling service |
| P | Population or perspective | Which population or perspective will the research be conducted for/from | Patients diagnosed with cancer |
| I | Intervention | The intervention been studied | Mindfulness based cognitive therapy |
| C | Comparison | Is there a comparison to be made? | No comparison |
| E | Evaluation | How well did the intervention work, what were the results? | Assess patients attitudes to see if the intervention improved their quality of life |
Example question taken from: Tate, KJ., Newbury-Birch, D., and McGeechan, GJ. (2018) ‘A systematic review of qualitative evidence of cancer patients’ attitudes to mindfulness.’ European Journal of Cancer Care, 27(2) pp. 1 – 10.
A model useful for qualitative and mixed method type research questions, especially for question examining particular services or professions.
Example question: Cross service communication in supporting adults with learning difficulties
| E | Expectation | Purpose of the study - what are you trying to achieve? | How communication can be improved between services to create better care |
| C | Client group | Which group are you focusing on? | Adult with learning difficulties |
| L | Location | Where is that group based? | Community |
| I | Impact | If your research is looking for service improvement, what is this and how is it being measured? | Better support services for adults with learning difficulties through joined up, cross-service working |
| P | Professionals | What professional staff are involved? | Community nurses, social workers, carers |
| S | Service | Which service are you focusing on? | Adult support services |
You might find that your topic does not always fall into one of the models listed on this page. You can always modify a model to make it work for your topic, and either remove or incorporate additional elements.
The important thing is to ensure that you have a high quality question that can be separated into its component parts.