Shelly Warwick, Ph.D – Permission is granted to reproduce and edit this work for non-commercial educational use as long as attribution is provided and the edited work is also available under the same terms of license.

After This Unit You should be Able To: State the primary methods of searching Know the primary methods of combining search terms Define the Boolean operators and the differences in search results using OR and AND Be able to use the correct Boolean operator in constructing a search strategy

Search Methods To Be Covered Keyword Field Proximity/adjacency

Keyword Searching Finds word or phrase anywhere in item Must match search words or phrase exactly Finds words or phrases not necessarily concepts or subjects

Field Searching A field is a location or area in which certain data is located in a database record. Each field in each record in the database contains like information in the same format Available in organized databases such as library catalogs or PubMed/Medline A field search finds the desired terms in the specified field

Advantages of Field Searching Can specify in where you want to find the term you’re searching, e.g. subject, title, abstract. In a database with a controlled vocabulary good results are usually achieved with searching the subject field

Fields in PubMed Affiliation [AD] Article Identifier [AID] All Fields [ALL] Author [AU] Book [book] Comment Corrections Corporate Author [CN] Create Date [CRDT] Completion Date [DCOM] EC/RN Number [RN] Editor [ED] Entrez Date [EDAT] Filter [FILTER] First Author Name [1AU] Full Author Name [FAU] Full Investigator Name [FIR] Grant Number [GR] Investigator [IR] ISBN [ISBN] Issue [IP] Journal [TA] Language [LA] Last Author [LASTAU] Location ID [LID] MeSH Date [MHDA] MeSH Major Topic [MAJR] MeSH Subheadings [SH] MeSH Terms [MH] Modification Date [LR] NLM Unique ID [JID] Other Term [OT] Owner Pagination [PG] Personal Name as Subject [PS] Pharmacological Action [PA] Place of Publication [PL] PMID [PMID] Publisher [PUBN] Publication Date [DP] Publication Type [PT] Secondary Source ID [SI] Subset [SB] Supplementary Concept[NM] Text Words [TW] Title [TI] Title/Abstract [TIAB] Transliterated Title [TT] UID [PMID] Version Volume [VI]

Proximity Searching Finds words within the specified relationship (adjacent or near) to another word without specifying order so could search for “health” and “literacy” near each other, which would find “health literacy”, “literacy and health” The ability to do a proximity search, and the codes to do a proximity search varies by database.

Limits/Filters In addition to fields, PubMed (and some other databases such as Ovid) offer Limits or Filters, that allow you to do a search that meets criteria other than the terms entered, or, to display a subset of your search after it has been complete. Such filters in PubMed Include: Article type Text availability (full text, free full text) Publication dates Species (Human/animal) Languages Sex Subjects Journal categories Ages Search fields

Combining Search Terms with Boolean Operators Boolean searching allows you to combine terms (words or concepts) in a search It uses three words, called operators, to combine terms The operators are: AND - requires ALL input terms be present in EVERY item retrieved OR - requires ANY of the terms searched for be present in items retrieved NOT - which excludes results containing a specified term Sometimes symbols are used instead of the words, such as + for “and”

Lets Search the Ice Cream Database

Here’s A Venn Diagram of a Chocolate and Vanilla Relationship Vanilla Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Chocolate

Searching for a Single Concept will yield all information in the brown circle, including the part that overlaps the green circle Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Chocolate Vanilla Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Chocolate Searching for Chocolate

Searching for a Single Concept Vanilla Chocolat e Vanilla Swirl will yield all the information in the green circle, including the part that overlaps the brown circle Vanilla Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Chocolate Searching for Vanilla

all the information in both circles - since either chocolate or vanilla is in every area of the diagram. Using OR Vanilla Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Chocolate Searching for Chocolate OR Vanilla will yield? Vanilla Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Chocolate

Using AND only the information in the overlapping area where both chocolate AND vanilla are present, “chocolate vanilla swirl” Vanilla Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Chocolate Chocolate vanilla swirl Searching for Chocolate AND Vanilla will yield ?

Using NOT Vanilla Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Chocolate Searching for vanilla NOT chocolate will yield? all the information in the green circle except in that area that overlaps the brown circle

Using NOT all the information in the brown circle except that in the area that overlaps the green circle Chocolate Vanilla Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Chocolate Searching for chocolate NOT vanilla will yield?

Boolean Strings Boolean operators can be used to construct very complex searches by group search strings as in an algebraic formula If I want to search for the impact of aspirin or ibuprofen on a 65 year old male with a heart condition and diabetes. Need to specify that you want article with either aspirin or ibuprofen and that include both cardiovascular disease and diabetes (Aspirin OR ibuprofen) AND (cardiovascular disease AND diabetes) [(Aspirin OR ibuprofen) AND (cardiovascular disease AND diabetes)] AND (men and seniors)

Parsing the Boolean String A parentheses indicates the beginning and end of a string Brackets are used to enclose multiple strings to make them a single term

Search Strings in PubMed PubMed indicates if a search term is a MeSH term by adding [MeSH] after the term –including for filters

Sample PubMed Search Using The Controlled Vocabulary - MeSH (("Aspirin"[Mesh] OR "Ibuprofen"[Mesh]) AND "Cardiovascular Diseases"[Mesh]) OR "Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2"[Mesh] AND "aged"[MeSH Terms] See next page to see the keyword search string in comparison

Sample PubMed Search String From A Keyword Search (("aspirin"[MeSH Terms] OR "aspirin"[All Fields]) OR ("ibuprofen"[MeSH Terms] OR "ibuprofen"[All Fields])) AND (("cardiovascular diseases"[MeSH Terms] OR ("cardiovascular"[All Fields] AND "diseases"[All Fields]) OR "cardiovascular diseases"[All Fields] OR ("cardiovascular"[All Fields] AND "disease"[All Fields]) OR "cardiovascular disease"[All Fields]) AND ("diabetes mellitus"[MeSH Terms] OR ("diabetes"[All Fields] AND "mellitus"[All Fields]) OR "diabetes mellitus"[All Fields] OR "diabetes"[All Fields] OR "diabetes insipidus"[MeSH Terms] OR ("diabetes"[All Fields] AND "insipidus"[All Fields]) OR "diabetes insipidus"[All Fields]))

Comparing Search Results by Method and Combination Search Words: health literacy Results by Method: Keyword/Boolean OR: returns results with items that have either “health” or “literacy” as well as those with “health literacy” any where within the item whether or not the terms are related Field Search: Returns only those items that have “Health Literacy” within the specified field Boolean AND: returns results with both “health” and “literacy” as well as those with “health literacy” Proximity Search – finds items where the words “health” and “literacy” are near each other, no matter the order Subject Search with Controlled Vocabulary: finds only those items that are indexed as pertaining to health literacy