Once you've decided on your topic, you can start creating keywords by answering a few basic questions and coming up with different ways to describe your topic. Here's an example topic, guided by some questions:
- What is it I'm researching? What are the main concepts?
- Exercise (all of you will have some variation of exercise relating to your chronic disease or condition!)
- Cystic Fibrosis
- What effect do I think exercising has on cystic fibrosis? (Our OUTCOME in PICO)
- Fewer Hospitalizations
- Decrease in rate of lung decline
- Better wellbeing
- Who (what population) do I want to focus on for my research? This might stop at patients with cystic fibrosis, but you could narrow and focus on a particular population.
- Men?
- Women?
- Young people/teenagers/children?
- Older people?
- Patients in a certain climate?
- What are some synonyms or related terms that I could use in place of my initial keywords?
- Aerobic fitness
- Running (or any other specific kind of exercise)
- Strength training (if you wanted to go a different direction)
- Inpatient care
- CF (abbreviation for cystic fibrosis)
- Cystic fibrosis pathophysiology (you need this for your assignment)
If you're struggling to develop keywords, it could be that you're lacking contextual, background information. It's important to find background information to provide some basic facts and context surrounding your topic. Where exactly can you find this kind of information?
- Textbooks and slides from class
- MedlinePlus - Online health information from the National Library of Medicine, part of the National Institute of Health
- General web searching