1. Searching PubMed
HIV Information Guide
Peace Ossom
July 2012

2. Searching PubMed
• This is an instructional guide to assist
health professionals in locating
educational and professional evidence for
the diagnosis and treatment of HIV in
pregnant women and their infants
postpartum.
• For basic search instructions, please visit the following site:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cephh8yXk3Il

3. First, identify the important concepts.
• Example Question:
Which method of antiretroviral prophylaxis—
zidovudine alone, nevirapine alone, or
zidovudine in combination with nevirapine—
administered during labor or to the HIV-infected
infant is best for reducing the chance of vertical
transmission when HIV has been diagnosed in
the mother late in her pregnancy?

4. Next Locate the Medical Subject
Headings related to those topics.*
*Begin at pubmed.com and choose “MeSH” in the drop box.

5. After locating appropriate MeSH
terms, add them to your search by
clicking the “Add to search builder”
button.
•PubMed automatically explodes the term when searched in this method. For
more detailed instruction on search options, please visit this basic tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cephh8yXk3I

6. Be sure to use subheadings where
appropriate. In this case I added
“prevention and control.”
• Search string:
• (("HIV Infections"[Mesh] AND "Prevention
and Control"[Subheading]) OR “HIV
infections/prevention and control"[Mesh
Terms]) AND “Zidovudine"[MeSH] AND
"Nevirapine"[Mesh]

7. Results

8. Refine by publication date and
language to exclude items that may
not be current or personally legible.
• Also, conduct multiple searches using a
combination of terms in order to locate all of
the most relevant results.
• Example strings:
– ("Treatment Outcome"[Mesh] OR "Therapeutic
Equivalency"[Mesh]) AND "Zidovudine"[Mesh] AND
"Nevirapine"[Mesh]
– "HIV Infections"[Mesh] AND prophylaxis[tw] AND
"prevention and control"[Subheading]

9. During each search, analyze results
for relevance and evaluate the
listed MeSH terms for the relevant
articles in order to get ideas of
terms to add to your searches.
• Remember to evaluate for currency, details
(type of research, # of participants,
randomization, etc.), and authors in order to
determine which results to trust.

10. For more information
• PubMed:
– Check out the PubMed Help page
– Visit their Tours & Tutorials page
• Dd
• Personal:
– Email: POssom@twu.edu
– Website:
http://myweb.twu.edu/~possom/index.htm