What Filter In Pubmed Is The Most Useful For Separating Out Articles That Provide The Best Evidence?

All-time tips to practise a PubMed search

PubMed is a search engine for the database MEDLINE, which is freely available for use. The MEDLINE database contains more than 32 million abstracts and citations for articles from biomedical and life sciences journals worldwide dating back to 1946. As such, PubMed is one of the nigh frequently used search engines among researchers in biomedical fields and is considered one of the most powerful. The website is maintained by the National Institutes of Health in the U.s..

Beginning a PubMed search

Start by generating some primal terms you will use for your search. Generate a list of keywords and phrases related to your topic of interest. If you are early in your thinking most this topic, you can browse known journals you read, identify related manufactures and use these to generate keywords. Open PubMed and enter your key terms into the search bar. Yous volition get a list of results. For example, the beneath search for "Covid-19 Vaccine" yielded 5,714 results.

PubMed search results

Using PubMed filters

Click on Display options before y'all offset viewing the results. Here you can select whether y'all want the results listing to display every bit a cursory summary or the article abstracts. You can select options such as: All-time match, Most recent, Publication date, First writer or Periodical. Familiarise yourself with the filters in the database and use them effectively. In PubMed you accept admission to filters like text availability, article type, publication date, linguistic communication and periodical. You can likewise utilize multiple filters in one search. These filters tin can really aid narrow your search so information technology is worth taking fourth dimension to explore all the filters and display options available.

Pubmed filters

The Commodity type filter, for example, is very useful. I way to brand use of this filter is to select systematic reviews. This will yield review articles on your topic of interest, providing yous with a meticulous summary of primary research on that topic. When y'all find one or 2 systematic reviews in your area, peculiarly those published by authors who are well known in your field, the reference list for those articles can be a slap-up guide for further searches.

When you lot click on the Timeline button, next to Filters, you lot see a graphical representation of the time period over which manufactures on the topic were published. Past grabbing and moving the slider (the circle), you can narrow the fourth dimension flow easily to reduce the number of results. You tin can come across this in the example below. This allows y'all to quickly narrow your search to a time catamenia during which at that place were numerous publications on the topic or to a more recent time flow.

PubMed time period graphical representation

PubMed time period graphical representation example

When you are reviewing the results list and click on one of the titles, you will be able to see more information almost that article. Generally, you can see the structured abstract for that article.

Iterative process

Searching for academic content is an iterative process. You typically enter your search with a strategy to guide you lot. The results from your initial search may not exist as focused every bit y'all demand or not contain what you were looking for. As you examine the search results, utilize the data to refine your search. Mayhap you lot need to narrow your search to more focused results or broaden your search to capture what y'all demand.

It is useful to know that in PubMed you can too run across a list of similar articles. This feature allows you to find additional articles related to your topic and specifically any articles that are key to your search.

At that place are a number of different tricks you can utilise to better focus your search.

Use quotation marks to search for a phrase – e.k. "blood force per unit area".
Use an asterisk (*) if you want to search for whatever terms that begin with a sure give-and-take – heart*. You lot can also apply this to search for any phrase that includes a truncated term.
Every bit with many search engines, you can use AND to generate results that include all the search terms; OR to generate results that include at least one of the search terms; and Non to exclude terms from your search. If you lot search "Vitamin D AND Covid-19" you would generate results articles including both of these terms. If you search "Vitamin D OR Covid-19" you would generate results with articles including either of these. If yous search "Vitamin D Not Covid-nineteen" yous would generate results with manufactures including vitamin D merely not Covid-nineteen.

Managing your PubMed searches

In that location are many features in PubMed that allow you lot to manage your searches. You tin can cite, save and share in the PubMed search engine. It is of import equally y'all comport your search that you observe a way to save those results that you find relevant. Additionally, you want to exist able to save the citations for whatsoever articles you may use so you tin can include them in your reference list. PubMed allows y'all to salve citations to a clipboard, email the citations and/or export them into any citation management software you are using like EndNote. You can also create an RSS feed for any search you conduct. Searches in PubMed can be combined using your History and you lot can do this by going to the Advanced Search folio using the History tabular array.

Summary

As with any search engine, spend some time exploring all of the features of PubMed earlier outset your search. Explore the FAQs and User Guides. Researchers and academics are busy, and ofttimes we launch into a search earlier fully understanding all of the features available to us. Spending time exploring the search engine will save you time in the long run and result in more productive and efficient searches.

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