Finding Research Instruments: Health & Psychosocial Instruments

Database

• searchable research tool that includes records about a wide range of sources, primarily articles

Record

• collection of information about a single item, usually an article, within a database; includes several fields

Field

• section of a record that provides a specific piece of information about the item described (the title, the author, the abstract, etc.)

Truncation (*)

• the star or asterisk key tells the database to look for any ending of a word; one example: searching for measure* in a database would find the words measure, measures, and measurement

HaPI lets you search very specific types of documents. You'll have better results if you choose only one to search at a time.

The ones you're most likely to search are:

• Primary source: the original publication of the instrument by its developer
• Secondary source: articles that describe uses of the instrument; sometimes these are later studies by the developer
• Review source: an article evaluating the instrument in some way

While HaPI records include common fields like Title, Acronym, and Abstract, they also have a few important unique fields:

• Measure: terms describing what the instrument attempts to measure
• Sample: terms describing characteristics of participants in the study
• Subscale: this field either names question subsets of the original instrument or indicates to which original instrument a subscale belongs (this field appears in primary source records only)

Use keywords to describe the topic that interests you.

You may need to try a number of synonyms, since HaPI has very brief abstracts and sometimes a peculiar vocabulary.

If you get stuck, try searching the Indexes for keywords until you find one that the database recognizes as significant.

If you're getting too many results, and you think you've found the right words to describe your topic, you can use the drop-downs to search specifically in fields like ME Measure or SA Sample. Some combination of fields could be the most successful at narrowing your results.

Be sure to limit to the type of source you want. Remember, if you search for a Primary Source you'll locate articles in which the instrument was originally presented; in a Secondary Source, you'll see ways in which the creator or other researchers used it in later studies.

Type the name of your test, in quotes if you're sure of the exact title, and choose TI Title from the drop-down menu.

If you know the acronym, use the AC Acronym field instead.

The default search will include both these fields, so you can try that, too, especially if you're not positive of the exact test name or acronym.

Follow the instructions for searching by topic or title and limit to Review Source.

HaPI records are about the research instrument; the source (primary, secondary, or any other type) is listed in the Source field.

Remember, by using the instructions below, you are not necessarily obtaining the instrument itself. You'll be locating the source in which the instrument was introduced, described, validated, utilized or otherwise mentioned. You likely won't know if the instrument is included in the article in full until you see the source listed by HaPI.

To locate the most common type of source, a journal article, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Find Journals By Title tab in this guide.
2. Search for the name of the journal.
3. Determine if we have the journal online for the date on which your article was published.
4. If so, use the "View Online" option to get to the full-text of the article.
5. If not, go to the InterLibrary Loan tab in this guide to request the article online.