Physician Assistant

Title or Title /Abstract Searching:

• searches for your terms in the title field of the record only or title/abstract fields
• will help narrow or focus a search
• when Title and Abstract are selected from the drop menu, the code is applied to the whole search box
• spelling counts - not all databases will offer autocorrect options

PubMed - pair the search term (xxxx) with the tag in the search box (no space between)

• e.g. for Title: xxxx[ti] or xxxx[Title]
• e.g. for Title / Abstract: xxxx[tiab] or xxxx[Title/Abstract]

• or go into PubMed Advanced Search and select either Title or Title/Abstract from the drop menu. After selecting, then choose the ADD button to place the search terms into the query box.

Author Search:

• searches for your words in the author field only
• authors frequently publish under various forms of their name (e.g. Smith, JA; Smith, J; Smith, John A; Smith, J. Aaron; etc.). It is best to search using last name with just the first initial.
• PubMed - pair the name with the tag [Author] or [au] in the search box
  • e.g. Turner[Author]

                                                             

Place phrases in Quotations Marks

• e.g. “Health expenditures” or “intensive care unit” or "Calgary Family Assessment"

Caveat: 

• Turns off auto mapping and auto explode in PubMed

Truncation and Wildcards:

• Can be used at the end or in the middle or a word
• Offers a way to easily search for words with multiple endings, variant spellings, or word groups
• Symbols are not universal – check database help as needed
• Any terms retrieved using either truncation or wildcard characters are not considered when sorting your results based on relevance

PubMed: ( * )

• Asterisk (*) matches multiple characters - substitute for 0 or more characters in a term or phrase.
  • Must use at least 4 characters before placing the asterisk or the truncation will be ignored
    • e.g. Ped* is not sufficient and the command will be ignored
  • Search for words with multiple endings
    • e.g.  nurs* finds nurse, nurses, nursing, nursery, etc.
  • Use within words to find multiple variant characters
    • e.g. equa*y finds equality and equally
  • Terms can contain multiple wildcards
    • e.g. organi*tion*

Caveat:

• Truncation turns off automatic term mapping (the process that maps to MeSH terms along with other similar terms (Entry Terms) in the MesH record
  • e.g. tumor* will not map to the MeSH term Neoplasm or include any of the Entry Terms: malignancies, cancer

Proximity searching allows for searching for two or more terms within a certain number of words of each other.

PubMed:

• Used to find terms that are close to each other - in any order
• format = "search terms"[field tag:~N]
  • include the quotation marks around your terms
• Field tags: Proximity searching is only available in the following search fields
  • [Title] or [ti]
  • [Title/Abstract] or [tiab]
  • [Affiliation] or [ad]

• N stands for the maximum number of words appearing between search terms.
  • Using an N of zero means the search terms must be adjacent to each other - in any order
• E.g. "prenatal vitamins"[Title:~2] - will retrieve citations with the terms prenatal and vitamins with up to two words between them in the title of a citation - prenatal vitamins; prenatal intake of vitamins; vitamins given prenatally