1. Searching EMBASE Helen Rowlandson Medicines Information Manager Northwick Park Hospital, London

2. Session aims  To understand the concepts of a basic search strategy in Embase  To describe the EMTREE thesaurus in detail so that you will be able to apply EMTREE to use Embase efficiently  To carry out advanced Embase searches

3. Plan  What is Embase?  Medline v Embase  EMTREE  NLH Software – searching tools  Worked Examples

4. What is EMBASE?  Major biomedical & pharmaceutical database  European focus  >3,500 journals, 70 countries  Subject coverage focuses on human medicine Includes drug research, pharmacology, pharmaceutics, health policy and management, public health

5. EMBASE vs Medline MEDLINE  USA coverage  1950 onwards  Wide medical coverage  In process  MeSH indexing EMBASE  European coverage  1974 onwards  Drug/pharmacology focus  Updated faster  EMTREE indexing 30% overlap between the Medline and Embase

6. Searching EMBASE  Controlled vocabulary = EMTREE  Uses natural language  US spellings rather than British  INNs used where possible  Acronyms & abbreviations can be used  Tree Structure – Hierarchy  Indexing: Terms added/Drug names

7.  Open Internet and type: http://www.library.nhs.uk/Default.aspx  Click “Athens users click here”  Right click & then click on “create a shortcut”  Enter Athens password NLH Software

8.  Embase 1974 to date  2 options to search for terms: Thesaurus mapping Browse headings

9.  Explode Includes everything below in the tree structure  Focus (Major) Only includes articles where the MeSH heading (descriptor) is the main focus of the article Explode/Focus

10.  Many more subheading options for drugs compared with Medline e.g. diclofenac Subheadings

11.  No real need to use them in EMBASE  Most medicines have EMTREE terms – even recently licensed ones  If a drug hasn’t got an EMTREE term assigned – use free text CAS numbers

12.  Limit searches in similar way to Medline  Differences compared with Medline Limits

13.  Publication types have their own facet / tree top of EMTREE terms that are searchable  Facet J: types of article or study  Build up your search and combine in the usual way (using BOOLEAN) with other search terms Publication types

14.  Are there any papers about UK SSRIs or SNRIs being used in the treatment of Huntington disease? Worked example 1

15.  Are there any articles which discuss using high dose vitamin supplementation to treat autism ? Worked example 2