advanced searching in pub med mar 2010

Advanced MEDLINE Searching

March 15th, 2010Robin FeatherstoneClinical Medicine Librarianrfeathe@uwo.ca

Agenda – 5 Scenarios, 5 Tools

• The Comprehensive Search– Ovid MEDLINE

• The Clinical Question– Clinical Queries in PubMed

• The Regular Update– E-mail updates in PubMed

• The Precise Search– Single Citation Matcher in PubMed

• The Rush Job– Pubget

Tip

• Start your searches using the library’s medicine program pages

Exercise: Locate the program page for General Medicine

Search Scenario #1: The Comprehensive Search*

• You have to find EVERY article on a particular topic

• You are assisting a research team or are writing a thesis

Comprehensive Search Strategies

• Search multiple databases• Use Ovid MEDLINE (instead of PubMed) for

your search• Set up a RefWorks* (or similar product)

account to manage your citations• Design a explicit, systematic search strategy

that can be reproduced• Use both keywords and subject headings

Scenario

You are hired by a faculty researcher who is conducting research on hearing loss in AIDS patients. They ask you to find every article published on the subject.

Exercise

Spend about two minutes to conduct a quick search in PubMed on the topic:

AIDS and hearing loss

What is the quality of your results?

Exercise

Find the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for:1. AIDS2. Hearing loss3. Deaf

Which term should you explode?

Exercise

Run the search in Ovid MEDLINE

Search Scenario #2: The Clinical Question

You need to answer a question at the point of care to: – Support a clinical decision– Answer a patient’s question

Clinical Question Types

1. Aetiology: What is the cause of the disease and its mode of operation?

2. Diagnosis: How accurate is this diagnostic test?3. Prognosis: What is the probable course of the disease?4. Therapy: Is one intervention more effective than another?5. Prevention: How to reduce the risk of this disease?6. Cost-effectiveness: Is one intervention more cost-effective than

another?7. Quality of life: What will be the patient’s quality of life?

Clinical Question Strategy

• Use Clinical Queries in PubMed to find the best studies to answer your question

Enter your keywords and select the type of question that you want to answer

Scenario

• A patient with rotator cuff tendinitis asks if you know of any new therapies that would be safe to try.

Exercise• Using Clinical Queries, search PubMed to find

some new studies on treatments for rotator cuff tendinitis

Search Scenario #3: The Regular Update

• You want to stay up to date on the latest publications, but don’t have time to run regular searches

Regular Update Strategy

• Start an account with PubMed (MyNCBI)– Set up your search to run automatically and have

the results sent to your email

Scenario

• You’ve been seeing a lot of patients recently with rotator cuff tendinitis and would like to stay up to date on the most recent publications about treatments

Exercise

• Register for an account with My NCBI

• Return to your PubMed search on rotator cuff tendinitis

• Select “Save Search”• Name your search and select “Save”• Set up your e-mail update preferences

Search Scenario #4: The Precise Search

• You just want one article• You’re searching for items from a reference

list or for a particular article that someone mentioned to you

Precise Search Strategy: Single Citation Matcher

Enter as much information as you can and PubMed will find the closest matching article(s)

Scenario• Your preceptor asks you to read an article in the journal Lung about

a respiratory syndrome affecting survivors of the World Trade Center disaster. They can’t recall anything more about the article.

Exercise• Use Single Citation Matcher to find the article

Search Scenario # 5: The Rush Job

• You need the full-text of an article RIGHT NOW!

Rush Job Strategy: Pubget

• Pubget will display full-text PDFs for Western’s subscriptions within your results sethttp://pubget.com/search

Exercise

• Search Pubget to find an article about discharge instructions after cataract surgery

Recap

• The Comprehensive Search– Ovid MEDLINE

• The Clinical Question– Clinical Queries

• The Regular Update– E-mail updates

• The Precise Search– Single Citation Matcher

• The Rush Job– Pubget

Questions

Robin FeatherstoneClinical Medicine Librarianrfeathe@uwo.ca