Maximize Your Literature Search

Decide what type of information you need

Maximize Your Literature Search Help Sheet » Download PDF

Background information:  General knowledge about condition, treatment, test, etc. (Often questions begin with:  What, How, Why, etc.  Ex. What is the best treatment for pneumonia?) 

Foreground information: More specific and complex typically concerning a specific patient or population.  (Often questions begin with the Patient/Population/Problem  Ex. In an 80-year-old women with pneumonia, is drug X better than drug Y for preventing mortality? 

Background Information Resources

  • E-books, etc. 
    • AccessMedicine  
    • ClinicalKey  
    • LWW Health Library Collection  
  • Point of Care Tool 
    • UpToDate  
  • Drugs/Medications 
    • Lexi-Comp, Micromedex, MedlinePlus 
  • All of the above are found on the library website (https://library.mednet.iu.edu/):  Popular Resources > Databases  
  • Search using Keywords 

Foreground Information Resources

  • Databases  
    • PubMed – Biomedical
    • Embase – Biomedical
    • PsycINFO – Psychology/Psychiatry
    • CINAHL – Nursing and Allied Health
    • Scopus – use for forward citation searching
    • Web of Science – use for forward citation searching
  • All of the above are found on the library website (https://library.mednet.iu.edu/):   Popular Resources > Databases  
  • Search using Subject Headings/Index Terms AND Keywords 
  • Save searches within databases 

Use Subject Headings/Index Terms/Thesaurus Terms to

  • Avoid irrelevant articles  
    • Articles that contain the topic term but aren’t specifically about the topic 
  • Include articles that use synonyms and/or various spellings of your topic  
    • heart attack vs myocardial infarction 
    • pediatrics in U.S. vs. paediatrics in Great Britain 
  • Provide clarity when words are spelled the same but have different meanings 
    • tears from your eyes vs. tears in cartilage 
    • study aids vs AIDS (the disease) 

Use Keywords for

  • New terms 
  • Very recent articles 
  • Drug names 
  • Comprehensive searching 

Keyword Searching tips

Synonyms           for high blood pressure, try: hypertension or hbp
Truncate              diagnos* = diagnosis, diagnosing, diagnostic, diagnostics, etc
Proximity            cell NEAR/3 block   NOTE: Does not work in PubMed.
Use fields            look for keywords in the abstract or title. 
Spelling               pediatrics OR paediatrics (consider using singular in PubMed) 
Phrase                 “therapeutic touch” NOTE: Does not work in PubMed. 
Nesting                (Example below)
(“therapeutic touch” OR “healing touch”) AND (inpatient OR hospitalized or hospital) AND pain 

Save searches within databases 

  • PubMed – Use MyNCBI for search alerts 
  • All other databases have a “Save Search” feature.  Often, you must create a free login for the database. 

Find full text

Look for the Find It Button Picture of red "Find It" button with white letters saying "Find It".
More information on locating full text at https://library.mednet.iu.edu/full-text/

Assistance

Please feel free to email us (medlref@iupui.edu) or call (317) 274-7182

 

 

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