Reflection

What I learned about my topic:

What I learned about ADHD throughout my searching was that the number of young children taking some form of ADHD medication has more than quadrupled from 2007 to 2013. This is believed to be a cause of overprescribing. As of 2016 more male children were diagnosed with ADHD, as well as more children aged 12 to 17. There were also more African American children diagnosed with ADHD and the region with the most diagnosis was the Midwest. I was not surprised that the majority if diagnosis belonged to the teen age group due to many doctors/parents waiting till students grew out of the natural hyperactivity that all children have. I also learned the lifestyle changes with the potential to successfully manage ADHD over the long term, beginning at an early age and continuing across the life span, may be critically important to positive outcomes for individuals with the disorder (Hoza 1) and that the effects of ADHD can be managed and controlled by physical activity and early intervention can delay of prevent the onset of ADHD.  

What I learned about searching for my topic:

I learned that while searching through all the different databases ADHD and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder each received results numerous results. I focused on ADHD in children and methods to control the disorder and was able to find adequate results on each database. I also learned that using the database thesaurus and limiters significantly improved the accuracy of my search results. 

How my searching skills have changed:

This semester we searched many different databases using different types of searching. My searching skills have changed due to my experience with the different databases and the different thesaurus’ and limiters that were available to me. In the future I plan to use the thesaurus more often in my searches. My skills have also changed with learning new searching strategies such as pearl growing and successive fractions that I can apply to all of my future searches in order to find better results more suited for my topic. 

My opinions about commercial and internet-based databases:

Both commercial and internet based databases have their pros and cons. The commercial databases are expensive and required a subscription to have access to them. However, commercial databases have better and more reliable materials. One other thing is that a majority of commercial databases use controlled language meaning that you cannot use everyday language and sentence structure to search you have to use specific terms that the database has set aside for that topic. Internet-based databases are free to use and easily accessible to everyone and use natural language and sentence structure searching to retrieve results. The downside to Internet-based databases is that their results are not reliable and sometimes biased meaning that you have to take more care to find results that are appropriate.

Your opinion overall about db searching:

My opinion about database searching is that it is an important part of the reference and the searching process. Database searching is used in schools around the world and everyone should have experience searching on both commercial and internet-based databases. I think that database searching is very useful however if you do not know how to use them it can be frustrating and hard to find results. I think that if student were started earlier with learning how to correctly search databases using searching strategies to find reliable materials more students and adults would be able to effectively find their needed information. This would also help with searching internet databases like google or yahoo because they would be able to find the reliable materials and avoid the ones that are biased or fake news. I think that google has changed the searching environment in that it has made the searching process easy for everyday users. Google allows for people to search and find information for free and with natural language that they are used to. 

Google Images

For this search I used Google Images to search for an image that represents my topic of ADHD.

I started by going to google's home page and selecting images in the top right corner, this takes me to the google images home page.

(Google Homepage)

(Google Images Homepage)

Once on the Google images page I entered in my search term of ADHD.

The following is a look at the results that I received. 

However, not all of these images are available for me to use due to copyright laws. To find an image that I can use I need to click on the settings tab at the top of the page under the search bar. 

In the search drop down box I can click on advanced search to take me to a page where I can limit my search by terms, phrases, image size, aspect ratio, colors in image, type of image, region, site, safe search (take out explicit results), file type, and finally usage rights. 

Since I do not have any preferences on what types of results I want to receive, beside them being on my topic, I am only going to change the usage rights limiter. After I click on the dropdown box I look through the options and since I do not plan to modify my image I select the one that says 'free to use or share'. 

The following are the top results that I received using the term ADHD and with my limiter being that all images are free to use or share. 

From the results the following image is the one that I decided upon for my final image due to it listing  symptoms of ADHD in a way that is simple to see and understand. 

Searching using Google Images is a quick and easy way to find images that you need. The website is very easy to navigate. I have never used the advanced search setting before this search, to me this was easy to find and use for a first timer. They set it up with natural language terms that an everyday user can understand. 

Dialog

When searching Dialog I started using the basic search. I typed in the term ADHD as my natural language search. I also selected the limiters of full text, scholarly journals, and peer reviewed. With this search I retrieved 1493 results, in each result Dialog highlighted all of the search terms so that you were able to easily see that they all contained information about your topic.

I then added "In children" and received 1249 results, of which most were on the topic of detecting and treating ADHD in children. Because of the overwhelming amount of results I decided to also limit them to the United States-US which left me with 185 results, I then limited it to publication between 2008-2018 and was left with 166 results.

Of these results few caught my eye and towards result 15 and on there were a lot that weren't on the topic of ADHD. The best result from my Natural Language search was the following result. 

For my Controlled language search I started by going to the Advanced search option on the upper right corner of the home page search bar. 

Once on the Advanced search they give an option of using a thesaurus. 

When I selected the thesaurus option it brought up a list of possible thesaurus' that I could search to find terms to use. 

Since I am using a ProQuest database I decided to use the ProQuest thesaurus. I searched for ADHD terms and was given the result of Attention Deficit Disorder. 

I noticed that there was a yellow box next to the terms so I clicked on it to see what it would say and it gave me a definition of what Attention Deficit Disorder is as well as what you use the term in place of and what the related terms are. 

I then went back to the advances search page and typed in my terms of Attention Deficit Disorder and used the boolean AND to add that I wanted results for hyperactivity AND children. 

My search with no limiters brought back 1521 results. 

I then limited my search to bring back results that were full text, peer reviewed, scholarly journals, from the United States-US, and published between 2008-2018. I was left with 156 results. 

Similar to the natural language search this search also had the first few results being on the topic I searched and from there the results only contained part of my search terms. 

The best results I retrieved with the controlled language search was results number three from the New England Journal of Medicine 

This article contained information about ADHD diagnosis, treatments and therapies, medicine, as well as author recommendations. 

I enjoyed searching Dialog due to the ease of navigating. I was able to quickly search and limit my first time on the database, Dialog also made it very easy to find the thesaurus. I love that they have links to various thesaurus' that you can search through for your correct terms. Dialogs use of highlighting makes it easy to spot search through the results to find the best one for your topic. Another thing that helped was when narrowing by publication date Dialog gives you a graph to see how many results are within which time frame that gives you an idea of what years had the most information published. 

Facebook App

For this search I used the Facebook App. 

On the Facebook app I typed in ADHD in children into the search bar. I found an article from the Washington Post titled Could some ADHD be a type of sleep disorder? That would fundamentally change how we treat it.

This article discusses the commonality of ADHD symptoms and symptom of people with sleep issues. "Sleep problems fall into three categories: insufficient sleep, insomnia and disordered breathing. All are common among young children. Some studies estimate that their prevalence might be as high as 20 to 40 percent in young children" (Cha). Cha also quotes a study done by Karen Bonuck in 2012 where she found that children who have apnea, mouth breathing, and snoring were 40 to 100% more likely to have symptoms resembling ADHD by age 7 than their peers without those issues. Cha also stated that other studies have shown that "75 percent of people with ADHD have sleep disturbances and that the less sleep they get the more severe the symptoms".

I also entered in the search terms ADHD (children) but received a lot of the same results as with my first search. When I entered in the terms Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in children the results that came back were some of the same and some were not results that were on the topic of ADHD such as the result shown below.

When searching the facebook app I was able to select what types of results I was looking at and that made it easier for me because I was only looking for posts not people or groups. Facebook also has an easy to follow interface. It was simply to figure out and to toggle between different types of results as well as filter by who posted it, whether its all posts or just posts you have seen, what group it was posted in, what location was tagged, as well as the year it was posted. 

Cha, Ariana Eunjung. “Could Some ADHD Be a Type of Sleep Disorder? That Would Fundamentally Change How We Treat It.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 20 Sept. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/09/22/could-adhd-be-a-type-of-sleep-disorder-that-would-fundamentally-change-how-we-treat-it/?fbclid=IwAR0LoYOMTKVqOn1I8eUQGFSsSiI1KmSSD1ULpkzUN9HuSAvMmncO6M4DVA4&noredirect=on&utm_term=.614514db63e7.

Statista

When searching Statista I was looking for statistics on ADHD in adolescents. 

I started this search using simple language and typing in 'ADHD' and a drop down pulled up with the terms Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I decided to first continue with my original search of ADHD. I received 56 results all of them being statistics and most of them being on adolescents. I then went back and tried the terms attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and received only 26 results. 

I went back to my original search since I had more results. I then tried the limiter of United States and received 28 results. I also tried changing the publication date but did not like that I couldn't select a range of dates. I took off all limiters before continuing. 

I first picked the statistic titled Percentage of children in the U.S. who had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as of 2016, by age. 

GENDER

However, I was also curious to see some other statistics so I also looked at the Percentage of children in the U.S. who had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as of 2016, by gender, ethnicity, and region. 

ETHNICITY

REGION

As of 2016 more male children were diagnosed with ADHD, as well as more children aged 12 to 17, more were African American children and the region with the most diagnosis was the Midwest. 

I was not surprised that the majority if diagnosis belonged to the teen age group due to many doctors/parents waiting till students grew out of the natural hyperactivity that all children have. 

This search was fairly simple as statista is set up for natural language searching and the website has a clean set up. I was able to quickly find what I needed that was on my topic. It was also easy to navigate between the different statistics. 

CDC, and NCHS. "Percentage of Children in the U.S. who had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as of 2016." Www-Statista-Com.ezp.twu.edu, Feb. 2018, www-statista-com.ezp.twu.edu/.

LexisNexis

Searching LexisNexis I first used Natural language by searching the terms ADHD and Children.

Natural Language:

I received 991 results.  The 6th result caught my eye.



After clicking on this result and looking over it I noticed that at the bottom of the page it gives the option to search titles that have similar topics.
 

I selected learning disabilities and added that to my search terms and received 747 results.

Result 45 was another that caught my eye. This result is about misdiagnosis in children in Canada.

 

I decided to use the similar topics search again by selecting prescription drugs and narrowed my search to 188 results. Of the 188 results I found result number 74 to be the best.



This result was an article from a British paper. The article describes the misdiagnosis of ADHD in young children due to immaturity. The article also states that the prescription of Ritalin to treat ADHD has increased to 922,000 times per year. Ritalin contains severe side effects such as liver toxicity, weight loss, and suicidal thoughts among others. The article emphasis' the importance of rigorous assessment and diagnosis in order to be assured that the child truly suffers from ADHD.


Controlled Language:

I started by selecting the advanced search option and then selected look up terms. I chose the terms Attention deficit disorder and Adolescents and added them to my search. These terms brought back a large amount of results and gave me the following message.



On the list of results I picked number 50.



This article from Ireland expresses a concern over the amount of children that have been diagnosed with ADHD and are being medicated. The article is short so I decided to use the topics search at the bottom and selected children health.

This brought back only 140 results. Result number 130 was the one I decided on. 

This article is from Australia and it states that the number of young children taking some form of ADHD medication has more that quadrupled from 2007 to 2013. This they believe is due to pediatricians overprescribing. Dr. Jureidini believes that these drugs do more harm than good and cause issues with sleep, growth, and even possibly cardiac problems. Dr. Jureidini says that money could be better spent on other things that could have a better and safer impact on children with ADHD.

Shepherd, Tony. “Surge in Kids on ADHD Drugs.” Www-Lexisnexis-Com.ezp.twu.edu, 2015, www-lexisnexis-com.ezp.twu.edu/lnacui2api/api/version1/getDocCui?lni=5F40-J3S1-JD3N-51NB&csi=270944%2C270077%2C11059%2C8411&hl=t&hv=t&hnsd=f&hns=t&hgn=t&oc=00240&perma=true.

For this particular database I found that using natural language gave me better results for this topic. 

When using natural language LexisNexis brought back less results and all of the articles seemed to be 

on my topic even when I used the topic search. When using controlled language I received an 

unmanageable amount of results, so much that LexisNexis narrowed my results down to 1,000 at a 

time. I also noticed that not all of the articles that I clicked on gave me the option to narrow by topic 

search. When I used the topic search I ended up with a lot of results that weren't on the topic of 

ADHD. 

WorldCat

For World Cat I used the Advanced Search Option and decided to ONLY search for the term Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I used the Boolean OR to separate my different forms of the term. I entered in both controlled and natural language terms. My search terms were Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder OR ADHD OR Hyperkinetic Disorder (old term for ADHD). I also limited my search to English results within the time frame of 2010-2018. 

My search retrieved 1,397 total result but I am looking for mainly articles for my search and I noticed that in the top bar they have an option to limit to a specific type of result.
 
I look to where it says Articles and notice that out of the 1,397 results only 241 of them are articles so I click on it.
 
This gives me a more reasonable amount of results to search through and by putting in my specific facet all 241 of these results should contain information about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in some context.


Looking through the results I found one that interested my right away. Result number 51 titled Cognitive Training for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: meta-analysis for clinical and neuropsychological outcomes from randomized controlled trials. 



Using WorldCat and boolean operator OR helped to narrow my search down greatly. I also found that their limiters at the top of the page that let me select what type of results I was looking for (Articles) helped to narrow even further and also made it easier to find what I needed due to only seeing article results instead of having to sift through over a thousand results that contained other document types.

In the end I found a great article that covered my topic exactly (ADHD, therapy, children) and it didn't take a long time.

Searching PubMed using Successive Fractions

PubMed

"PubMed Health provides information for consumers and clinicians on prevention and treatment of diseases and conditions.

PubMed Health specializes in reviews of clinical effectiveness research, with easy-to-read summaries for consumers as well as full technical reports. Clinical effectiveness research finds answers to the question “What works?” in medical and health care.

PubMed Health is a service provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM)." (About). 

Successive Fractions

A successive fraction search is when you Search a term to note the amount of results and continue the process by adding on one term at a time. 

Controlled Language

Once on the home page of the PubMed Database I clicked on where it said Advanced under the search bar. 

                

  Once on the advanced search page I clicked on the dropdown at the top that said 'more resources'.

 

       Next I selected MeSH Database. The MeSH database is similar to a thesaurus in that you can search terms that you would like to use and it will tell you the term that you need to use to bring back more accurate results.

 

        Once in the MeSH database I used the top search bar and entered in ADHD and got the following result.

 

        MeSH gave me the search term Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity. They also list terms that you could combine with ADHD such as therapy and history. If you wanted to choose these terms then you would click in the box provided and then in the right hand corner click the button that says 'add to search builder' then select search PubMed and it will bring back all results fitting those terms. 

          But for this search I wanted to give specific number amounts of results found for ADHD as the terms were added one at a time. 

        I did both searches as controlled language. The first I simply just typed in the MeSH term myself and added to it as I went and the second I used the mesh search generator shown in the picture below.

 

            Search 1:

         Using the search bar I typed in Attention Deficit Disorder With Hyperactivity and received 33040 results.

 

I then added AND prevention and control and received 768 results.    

             And finally I added AND children and received 578 results which is a big change from the first search but still a lot of results to sort through. 

               Search 2: 

            I navigated back to the MeSH database and typed into the search bar ADHD. When it brought up my team Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity I selected the box that said 'Restrict to MeSH Major Topic' and clicked the button 'Add to search builder' then clicked 'search PubMed'. 

          I ended up receiving 21081 results which is a difference of 11,959 less results compared to when I just simply typed in the term myself in the first search. 

I then went back to MeSH and typed in ADHD again but this time I selected the subheading term prevention and control and the selected 'add to search builder' then 'search PubMed'. With these terms I received 144 result making a difference of 624 less results than my first search. 

 

        And finally I repeated the above steps and after adding Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity and prevention and control to my search builder I searched in the MeSH search bar the term children. MeSH return the result of Child so I added that term to my search builder and clicked search PubMed.

 

       I received 98 results making a difference of 480 results from the first search. I am happy with the number so now I can look through the results and find ones that I would like to use. 

        I found two that seemed to match all of my search terms and also looked as if they would be something that is useful to me. 

1. 

2. 

        Result 1 is a study that compares the effects of physical activity before school and sedentary classroom interventions on symptoms, behavior, mood, and peer functioning of children around the age of 6 that are at risk for ADHD. 

               Result 2 is a study that examines if family based preventive intervention for an inner city child that is entering first grade could effect the development of ADHD. 

            Both results cover my topic however, result 1 leans towards more of the control side and result 2 is more preventative. I would most likely use both of these results but I believe that the best result is result 1. 

"        Lifestyle changes with the potential to successfully manage ADHD over the long term, beginning at an early age and continuing across the life span, may be critically important to positive outcomes for individuals with the disorder" (Hoza 1). This article shows that the effects of ADHD can be managed or controlled by physical activity. The article also suggests that early intervention can delay or prevent the onset of ADHD. 

Searching PubMed with the two different style I found that using the MeSH database to target specific terms greatly effects the amount of results that you receive. I think that for future searches on PubMed I will definitely use the MeSH database to narrow my search and to have results that contain all of my search terms in the correct manner. 

Resources

About PubMed Health - National Library of Medicine - PubMed Health. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/about/

Hoza, Betsy, et al. "A Randomized Trial Examining the Effects of Aerobic Physical Activity on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms in Young Children." Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports,. U.S. National Library of Medicine, May 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4826563/.