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Searching Databases
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Searching Databases
PICOT: does exercising among individuals with a family history of obesity help maintain a healthy weight compared to a control group within one year?
Research evidence shows that people with a family history of obesity are more likely to be obese. Although it is recommended that such individuals engage in exercise activities, it has not been established whether regular exercising can lower the risk of obesity by promoting the maintenance of a healthy weight (Zhang et al., 2020). As a result, it is important to establish whether exercising activities will lower the risk of obesity among individuals with a family history of the condition (Park et al., 2020).
By only searching the term obesity, there were 619,000 results. However, as more concepts relating to the PICOT question were added, the research results in articles decreased. Adding a second concept to search “obesity risk”, the search results returned 534,000 results. On adding the phrase “family history of obesity” the search results reduced to 16,700. This implies that increasing search specificity narrowed the search results to a specific number of articles.
The search for evidence research can be improved by deploying specific strategies that are specific to the research results. The first strategy is to come up with a research topic. The second step is to identify the database. Once the topic has been selected, it is important to identify keywords that will be integrated into the search. Using the Boolean operator helps identify relevant research articles that will help explore the research topic (Walden University Library, n.d.). In the selected topic, the search started with the keyword obesity, followed by narrowing it down to obesity risk, and further to diabetes risk among individuals with a family history of obesity. This way, specific literature that addresses the research issue will identified, which will help learn more about the issue based on research evidence.
References
Park, W., Jung, W. S., Hong, K., Kim, Y. Y., Kim, S. W., & Park, H. Y. (2020). Effects of moderate combined resistance-and aerobic exercise for 12 weeks on body composition, cardiometabolic risk factors, blood pressure, arterial stiffness, and physical functions, among obese older men: a pilot study.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health,
17(19), 7233.
Walden University Library. (n.d.). Keyword searching: Finding articles on your topic: Introduction to keyword searching. Retrieved September 19, 2018, from
Zhang, L., Wang, Z., Wang, X., Chen, Z., Shao, L., Tian, Y., … & Gao, R. (2020). Prevalence of overweight and obesity in China: results from a cross-sectional study of 441 thousand adults, 2012–2015.
Obesity research & clinical practice,
14(2), 119-126.
