Real Life Search

1
Real Life Search
Everywomans CenterEating Disorders and
Neglected Populations

• Catherine Hogan

2
Everywomans Center Counseling Services

• Based at the University of Massachusetts but
  serving the whole community, the Everywomans
  Center is a multicultural campus-based womens
  center. http//www.umass.edu/ewc/
• The Counseling Services program provides free
  counseling to 5 college and community women.

3
Information Need

• Information on Eating Disorders and Neglected
  Populations
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Bulimia
• Individuals with Type-1 Diabetes
• Women of Color
• Men
• Middle-Aged Women

4
Information Need

• My client was looking for scholarly articles,
  with an emphasis on case studies.
• Further expansion of topics
• Health effects of having both an eating disorder
  and type-1 diabetes.
• The role of culture in treatment-seeking for
  eating disorders for women of color.

5
Client Communication

• Mostly by phone and e-mail
• Early on the search process, sent her sample
  full-text articles for her to evaluate.
• More current research on diabetes
• Information on eating disorder support groups for
  neglected populations.
• As the search progressed, that aspect was
  removed-Client was not as interested as in the
  research portion.

6
Resources

• PsycInfo
• Psychology Journals
• Medline
• CINAHL
• Databases that didnt yield results
• Sociological Abstracts
• Social Work Abstracts
• PsycArticles

7
Resources, Contd.

• Retrieved most of my results via PsycInfo
• Psychology Journals is a full-text databases, and
  so it was helpful when I was searching for sample
  full-text articles with which to provide my
  client.
• Medline and CINAHL were particularly useful in
  locating information about eating disorders and
  Type-1 Diabetes.

8
Database Aids

• Eating Disorders and the various population
  groups are broad topics, therefore it is
  necessary to use a narrow set of search terms.
• Often used controlled vocabulary/thesaurus
• Example in PsycInfo while searching for
  information on middle-aged women used the Age
  Group field to narrow to middle age 40 64 yrs

9
Results

• Found a lot of relevant material for diabetes,
  women of color, and men.
• Not as much information about middle-aged women
  and eating disorders.
• Discovered term late onset which helped to
  retrieve more results.

10
What to include?

• Did choose to include
• Dissertations
• Research conducted in foreign countries except
  when dealing with a cultural topic.
• Diabetes research in the U.K.-Yes!
• Women of color case studies in Britain-No.

11
Results provided to client

• Arranged according to subject type, i.e. women of
  color, men.
• Provided both full-text articles and citations
  with abstracts.
• 26 full-text articles
• 52 citations
• Citations were formatted in APA style due to
  subject matter and field of the client.

12
What I learned

• That, depending on the database and vendor youre
  using, the syntax (i.e. Population Groups in
  PsycInfo) and identifiers/descriptors can be very
  useful when searching a broad topic for specific
  information.
• That I enjoyed doing this type of research!