This Library Guide includes information useful to your success doing OT research projects, particularly as related to finding OT research or doing a literature review.
In summary, you are trying to make a change (the Intervention) from some other old way (the Comparison) for someone (the Population) to make things better in some way (the Outcome). Sometimes the Time period is included, too--are you interested in short term outcomes or long term outcomes?
P = Population
I = Intervention
C = Comparison
O = Outcome
T = Time
There is not One Right Way to search. But there are strategies that have proven useful.
There are many databases that include information and sources relevant to occupational therapy. Some subscription databases are provided by the ISU Library. Some databases are free to use with an individual membership. Others are free to use by anyone.
PubMed® comprises more than 37 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher websites.
MEDLINE provides an authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more.
CINAHL® provides indexing for 2,737 journals from the fields of nursing and allied health. The database contains more than 1,000,000 records dating back to 1982. Offering complete coverage of English-language nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses' Association, CINAHL covers nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health and 17 allied health disciplines.
Nursing/Academic Edition is a trusted full-text database covering nursing and allied health topics, including pediatric nursing, critical care, mental health, nursing management, medical law and more. - EBSCO Information Services
National occupational therapy organizations and their resources.