Skip to Main Content

Evidence-based dental practice: searching the literature and writing a report

This guide will help you search and assess literature to support dental research questions.

Stating the Aim

Stating the Aim (Peressini, 2003):
The question the report undertakes to answer is provided in this section. It should draw together all the key words used in the Introduction. In this case, in her “Background and Problem” section, Peressini (2003) established that we currently do not know if there is any relationship between pacifier use and early childhood caries (ECC).  Her question follows logically from this:

This literature review was undertaken to investigate the following question: Is use of a pacifier, whether prolonged or short term and whether sweetened or not, a risk factor for the development of ECC? The null hypothesis was that there was no difference in use of a pacifier between children with and those without ECC. This paper summarizes the strongest sources of evidence regarding this relationship.