Image

IUGA: Your Research Partner!

Elevate Your Research Journey with IUGA’s Support! In IUGA, we know how crucial it is to have strong support to make sure research succeeds. That’s why we developed a support system that meets your needs. Explore our detailed roadmap to discover how we can elevate your research journey from start to finish:

Finding a good research topic is a crucial step in the research process. Choose a topic that aligns with your interests, is relevant to your field, and has the potential for meaningful contributions. IUGA provides a wealth of resources to guide you through the process. Take the first step toward research excellence by exploring our research resources and discovering valuable insights that will elevate your research success.

Learn how by checking the Research Resources below.

* The opportunity to be part of the Mentorship Program and Research Partner Network and publish in the IUJ with a discount are all IUGA member benefits. Not a member yet? Join us today!

Research Resources

Choosing the right research question is the cornerstone to undertaking quality and successful research. It might come from an area of clinical uncertainty you have encountered, an emerging knowledge area not yet served by previous research, or you may have a senior mentor - either clinical or academic - who suggests an area in need of investigation. Having a senior research mentor will facilitate the process and it is important that you find someone in your wider community or look to professional organizations to support your research endeavors. IUGA is a great place to start if you need help finding a mentor local to you.

Without a well-focused question, it can be very difficult and time consuming to identify appropriate resources and search for relevant evidence. Practitioners of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) often use a specialized framework, called PICO, to form the question and facilitate the literature search. PICO stands for:

  • Patient Problem, (or Population)
  • Intervention
  • Comparison or Control
  • Outcome

The PICO acronym will help you to hone your research question; more information about this can be found by clicking here or here.

Once you've decided on the question you would like to answer, it is important to make sure that it has not already been answered. This can be done using a literature search, often involving multiple databases. Your hospital or local educational institution may offer you access or perhaps even library services where professional librarians can undertake searches on your behalf. If you do not have access to this resource, Pubmed and Google Scholar are good places to start. To ensure you find the right studies you will need to use specific search terms known as field codes and Boolean operators. A guide to undertaking searches may be provided by your library. Additionally, this article gives a good introduction to undertaking a literature search.