Once you know what your research topic is going to be, your next step is to identify the keywords in your research question. These keywords will help you build better searches and get more focused results. In evidence based nursing your keywords will often be your Patient or Population (i.e. nursing students, staff nurses, elderly diabetic patients), the Problem your population has (i.e. cancer, insomnia, diabetes), and what implementations are being taken to address that Problem (bedside shift reports, negative pressure wound therapy, music). Let's look at some examples:
In order to effectively search the library catalog and databases, you'll need to build a search strategy for your research question. The first step to creating a good search string is develop a list of synonyms and related terms for your keywords. In the English language, there are many ways of saying the same thing (for example: Breast Cancer OR Breast Neoplasms), but the catalog and databases will only search for the exact term(s) that you enter. If you type in 'breast cancer', but not 'breast neoplasms' then only 'breast cancer' will be searched for, even though 'breast neoplasms' is the same thing. The easiest way to come up with synonyms and related terms is create a quick chart (see examples below) that lists your keywords, synonyms and related terms.
Example One: In breast cancer patients experiencing insomnia, what is the effect of yoga on quality of life?
| Main Keyword | Synonym or Related Term |
| Breast Cancer | breast neoplasms, breast oncology, breast tumor |
| Insomnia | sleep disorders, sleep disturbance, sleeplessness |
| Yoga | yoga therapy, yoga exercise |
Example Two: In postoperative patients does chlorhexidine bathing reduce the risk of surgical site infections?
| Main Keyword | Synonym or Related Term |
| postoperative | post operative, post-surgery, post-surgical |
| chlorhexidine bathing | chg bathing |
| surgical site infections | surgical wound infection, postoperative infection, ssi |
Example Three: In patients with chronic kidney disease does a vegetarian diet compared to a regular diet slow the decline in renal function?
| Main Keyword | Synonym or Related Term |
| chronic kidney disease | chronic renal failure, ckd, esrd, renal insufficiency, kidney failure |
| vegetarian diet | plant-based, vegan |
| renal function | kidney function |