A guide to doing a systematic search in Pubmed

1. DOING A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE SEARCH
HANNAWILHELMSSON,LIBRARIAN,MALMÖUNIVERSITY,23OCT2014

2. Creating a search strategy
• The search question
• What databases?
• What search terms?

3. Search question
• Effects of psychological interventions to reduce dental fear in children
(5-16 years)
Dental fear Children
Psychological
interventions
!

4. Databases
• Pubmed (Medline) – medicine
• Google scholar – search engine
• Cochrane – systematic literature reviews
• Embase – feebased, biomedicine, not available at Malmö university
• Psycinfo – feebased, psychology
• Web of Science – feebased, citation index, general/all subjects
• Scopus – feebased, citation index, general/all subjects
• ScienceDirect – feebased, Elsevier journals, material science

5. Pubmed
• ”PubMed comprises over 24 million citations for biomedical literature
from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. PubMed
citations and abstracts include the fields of biomedicine and health,
covering portions of the life sciences, behavioral sciences, chemical
sciences, and bioengineering.”
• Free online
• Structured, indexed by human beings

6. Search terms
Dental fear
Dentists fear
Children
Teenagers
Psychological interventions
Cognitive behavioral therapy
CBT
Think of synonyms,
alternative spelling…
Search question: Effects of psychological interventions to reduce dental fear in children (5-16 years)

7. Find more search terms
• Do a ”quick and dirty” search.
• Purpose: to find search terms
• Or start with an article you already know of

9. MeSH – Medical Subject Headings
Controlled vocabulary used in e.g.
Pubmed

11. Search terms
Dental fear
Dentists fear
Odontophobia
Dental anxiety [MeSH]
Children
Teenagers
Child [MeSH]
Child, preschool [MeSH]
Adolescents [MeSH]
Psychological interventions
Cognitive behavioral therapy
CBT
Behavior Therapy [MeSH]
Cognitive Therapy [MeSH]
Relaxation Therapy [MeSH]
Music Therapy [MeSH]
Hypnosis Dental [MeSH]
Etc…

15. OR
Adolescents OR teenagers

20. AND
Dental anxiety AND children

22. More search techniques
• Truncation (child*)
• Wildcard (wom?n)
• Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT)
• Field search (Search term in title etc)
• Phrase search (”oral health”)
• Limits (Limits to language publication year etc)
Be careful in Pubmed! Truncation and phrase search can disturb your
searches.
Dental anxiety NOT children

23. A systematic search
1. Choose relevant databases - more than one!
2. “Quick and dirty” - search
3. Look at the subject terms for the articles you find interesting
4. Use the thesaurus to find more subject terms
5. “Brainstorm” Search Terms that are not in the thesaurus
6. Search every Search Term one at a time
7. Broaden your search with OR inside the Search Blocks
8. Combine the different Search Blocks with AND
9. Choose LIMITS
10. Look at the RESULT - Related citations? Missed anything?
11. Start all over again…

24. • The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions:
http://www.cochrane.org/handbook