guide to searching medline, psycinfo and cinahl · 2018-02-06 · click on healthcare databases –...

This guide covers how to access the healthcare databases via the NICE “Healthcare Databases Advanced Search” interface. You can also access the healthcare databases via other interfaces – content will be the same, the screens might just look a little different.

1. Logging on and accessing the databases

These databases can be accessed from any computer with Internet access as long as you follow the instructions on this page.

Click on Healthcare Databases – Advanced Search if you need to. Otherwise you will be taken directly to the list of available healthcare databases. Then click directly on the name of the database you want to search in. In this search example, we will be using PsycINFO. (It is best to search in one database at a time).

Go to the following website address: http://www.bsmhft.nhs.uk/about-us/library/

Next, click on the blue Search Healthcare Databases link under the ‘online resources’ heading

Guide to Searching Medline, PsycINFO and CINAHL

… and log in with your BSMHfT Athens username and password

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http://www.bsmhft.nhs.uk/about-us/library/

Anita Phul, BSMHFT Library Service. 0121 301 2059. [email protected] Last Updated Jan 2016

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2. Doing a Quick, Simple Search Example Search Question: Is light therapy effective in improving symptoms of seasonal affective disorder? Type your first keyword/s “light therapy” into the search box, as shown below. If you need to do a phrase search (multiple words that need to appear directly next to each other), encase the phrase in inverted commas. Then put a tick in the Map to Thesaurus checkbox and click on the Search button. (The thesaurus Mapping tool will retrieve a list of subject headings, relevant to what you typed in, so that you can select the relevant one/s).

mailto:[email protected]


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From the list of blue subject headings that appear, select the most relevant by putting a tick next to the select checkbox. (If the first attempt does not work, try typing just ‘light’ in. If you still can’t find a relevant subject heading, click on cancel and search for your keyword in the title & abstract instead). In this example, we would put a tick in the select checkbox next to phototherapy, as shown below. (This is the technical term for light therapy). Then click on the blue search button.

(Note: to find out what exploded, major descriptor and subheadings mean, please see section 10). You should then see some search results, as in the picture below:

Next type in your new search term: “seasonal affective disorder”



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Make sure the tick is still in the Map to Thesaurus box, and click on the Search button.

Select the subject heading Seasonal Affective Disorder by clicking in the select checkbox next to it, and then on the Search button.

You should now have two searches in your search history. The first line of results contains all the articles about phototherapy, and the second line of results contains all the articles about seasonal affective disorder.



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3. Combining Search Results To get a set of results where all documents talk about both subjects we would need to use AND to combine them together. First put ticks in the checkboxes next to both of the searches you wish to combine. Next, make sure there is a black dot in the circle by the AND. Then click on the Combine Selected button. You should now get a third line of results, as below:



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4. Applying Limits You can restrict searches to particular languages, publication years, or by age group. In this search example, we will apply a publication year limit. To apply limits, click on the “apply limits” link next to the search result you wish to limit. This brings up limit options such as date, language, article type and age group. Set your limits as you require. Then make sure the search step number of the results you wish to limit is in the search box (for example, you can see a number 3 in the search box below). This makes sure the system knows which set of results you wish to apply the limits to. Then click on the search button.



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5. Viewing documents, selecting and saving them

Click on the final number of results to view your documents. (In this case it is 105).

Viewing options

If you would like to see abstracts alongside references, put a tick in the ‘display abstracts’ check box. You can also sort by publication date so that the most recent articles appear at the top and display up to 50 references on a page (as opposed to only 10).

Selecting and saving references To select relevant references, put ticks in the corresponding check boxes next to them. You will later be able to save selected references in a list. Some articles will display full text links such as article number 2 in the next picture. Clicking on these links should lead you to the full text of the article. If a full text link is not immediately available in this way and you wish to see the whole article, you will need to fill in a request form to request it from the library service. Request forms are attached to the end of this guide, or you can obtain them from the library or download them from our library website.



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After selecting references of interest in this way, go down to the bottom of the screen where you will see a table with saving options. Select the Medium format if you want abstracts along with article references, and then click on the grey Export Results button. This will then allow you to save your articles.



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6. Extra Features: Saving searches and email alerts Saving Searches to your Athens Password If you do not have time to look through your search results, it is possible to save a whole search to your Athens password, so that you can view the results at a later date. After you have done your search, click on the blue Save All button to save all your search steps. If you only want to save certain search steps, click in the checkboxes next to the relevant ones and then click on the Save Selected Lines button instead.

You will then see a screen where you will be able to enter a name for your search and save it.



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Saved searches appear in a link towards the top of the main screen. These can be accessed and run every time you are logged onto the databases with your Athens password.

Alerts Sometimes you may have an ongoing project where you would continually like to be updated of new research articles on a particular subject. You can have this information about new articles emailed to you. To set up an email alert, you would need to follow the same steps as for saving a search, but then click on the Save & Create Alert button instead of the Save button.

7. Comprehensive Searching It is possible to do more comprehensive searches by running both free text and subject heading searches for each subject. This type of searching is demonstrated in the Searching Healthcare Databases – Advanced short course, and the options of the Map to Thesaurus function (described briefly in section 10) are also discussed in more detail. Please contact Anita for more information: [email protected] or 0121 301 2059.




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8. Finding Particular References

Author Searches Authors need to be entered in a particular format. For example, if you are looking for the author Anita Phul, you would enter: “Phul A*” You would also need to select the author option from the dropdown list before clicking on the search button. Journal Searches where there is more than one word in the journal title Please enclose these in inverted commas. For example: “Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing” “Advances in Psychiatric Treatment.”

9. Obtaining articles or book chapters in full text When looking through your results, you may find that some articles are immediately available in full text online – indicated by the blue full text links just under the abstract or under the reference. However, some of the articles may not be available in full text immediately. These you will need to order from the library. It takes an average of 2-3 days to obtain articles in this way so please allow for a few days. To order articles in full text, you can fill out a web form for them if you go to the website below and register for a Base Doc account: http://www.basedoc.co.uk/


http://www.basedoc.co.uk/cgi-bin/index.cgi


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10. Options of the Map to Thesaurus function Exploded When using the Map to Thesaurus function to find subject headings, you will find that each subject heading is a link in itself that can be clicked on. When you click on a particular subject heading (Eg. Psychotherapy), narrower subject headings may be listed beneath it (Eg. Art therapy, drama therapy, cognitive therapy…). Clicking in the ‘exploded’ checkbox for psychotherapy would mean that any article tagged with the narrower subject headings would also be included in the search. Therefore, ‘exploded’ broadens your search and gives you more results. Major Descriptor If you click in the ‘major descriptor’ checkbox beside a particular subject heading, only the most relevant articles related to that subject would be retrieved. Therefore ‘major descriptor’ limits the number of results you will get by making sure you see only the most pertinent ones. Subheadings Clicking in the ‘subheadings’ checkbox beside a subject heading brings up a list of generic subheadings that you can choose to search. Eg. Drug therapy, diagnosis, epidemiology, etc. You can then choose to combine one or more of these subheadings together with your selected subject heading. Please note that subheadings are not available in every database.


guide to searching medline, psycinfo and cinahl · 2018-02-06 · click on healthcare databases –...

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