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Database searching – a guide for NHS Staff
You will need an NHS Athens username and password to use this resource.
Athens registration is available from the NHS Evidence Journals and Databases
page at http://www.evidence.nhs.uk/nhs-evidence-content/journals-anddatabases . The databases available are:
Database
AMED 1985Allied and Complementary Medicine is
a unique database covering the fields of
complementary or alternative medicine
CINAHL 1982CINAHL covers all aspects of nursing
and allied health disciplines
EMBASE 1974
1980 to Present - EMBASE provides
current and comprehensive
information on drugs and
pharmacology, and all other aspects of
human medicine and related disciplines
Medline 1950This is a large US database of medical
information. Other subjects covered
include dentistry, veterinary medicine,
medical psychology, genetics and
advanced nursing practice
PsycINFO 1806Subjects covered relate to clinical,
social and biological areas of
psychology. These include addiction,
anthropology and law.
Subject Coverage
Allied health professions,
complementary medicine
Nursing & allied health
General medical with European focus,
pharmacology
General medical
Psychiatry, psychology, social sciences
Logging on
Go to the NHS Evidence Journals and Databases page
http://www.evidence.nhs.uk/nhs-evidence-content/journals-anddatabases
Select Healthcare Databases advanced Search
Choose your Database.
http://librarysupport.shef.ac.uk/databasesearching.pdf
Copyright © 2012, The University of Sheffield
Advanced Searching in single databases
It is recommended that you use the advanced search facility and select a single
database. This will allow you to build a flexible and systematic search. Most
importantly, you can use the database’s own indexing thesaurus to construct a
comprehensive search, tailored to your needs. Additional limits are also available
when databases are searched separately.
Planning your search
Be clear about your question, write down exactly what you want to know. You will
not obtain good results by entering whole sentences or questions; you need to
break questions down into search topics. One useful acronym to help is PICO.
You may not need all four elements to construct your search; at least two will give
useful results.
Query example: Does the routine use of inhaled oxygen (during the first 24 hours)
improve outcomes for patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction?
P
I
C
O
Patient/problem/population
Intervention/exposure
Comparison
Outcome
Acute Myocardial Infarction
Oxygen
Air
Mortality, Pain. Other outcomes
Most databases have a ‘map to thesaurus’ option available on the search screen.
Use this option to achieve the best results for your search
http://librarysupport.shef.ac.uk/databasesearching.pdf
Copyright © 2012, The University of Sheffield
Searching the database
Type your search term in the box
Where available, make sure you check the map to thesaurus box. This
ensures that your search term is mapped to a subject heading or
descriptor.
Click the search button
Check the Select box for your chosen subject heading.
Selecting Explode broadens the search to include the term you have
chosen, as well as any narrower terms that branch off underneath your
choice. Note that articles are always indexed under the most specific term
available – use of the explode function is recommended if you are unsure.
Selecting Major limits the retrieval of articles in which that term is one of
the most important i.e. it represents one of the main concepts of the
article.
Subheadings subsequently offers a menu to enable you to select
particular aspects of your topic (e.g. diagnosis or drug therapy). The use
of subheadings is not recommended if you are unsure.
http://librarysupport.shef.ac.uk/databasesearching.pdf
Copyright © 2012, The University of Sheffield
Combining searches
To retrieve relevant information you need to be able to link concepts/keyword
together. Most databases use the Boolean operators OR and AND to do this.
OR – used for words which have similar meaning. This broadens your search and
increases the terminology
AND – used to link different concepts. This narrows your search and reduces the
number of references.
Refining your searches
If you get too many results you may need to narrow the focus in order to increase
the specificity of your search:
Add additional keywords with AND
Use more specific keywords
Limit publication year, age groups, language, publication type (and other
limits available within the database)
http://librarysupport.shef.ac.uk/databasesearching.pdf
Copyright © 2012, The University of Sheffield
If you get too few articles you may need to expand the focus in order to increase
the sensitivity of your search:
Use freetext searching and include truncation
Use all possible alternatives
Use broader keywords
Limits
To apply relevant limits to your search results, select limits from the options
displayed. The choice of limits will differ in individual database.
Click on the relevant tabs to apply specific limits
Free text searching
If you need to search for a particular word or phrase, maybe in the title or
abstract of a record, you can enter that word or phrase in the search box and
select the field you require. The map to thesaurus box will need to be unchecked.
Note that this method of searching is useful for checking references or in
particular circumstances but is not generally a good way to carry out a
systematic, good quality search.
Author searching
You can construct a search to retrieve articles by a particular author. Type the
author’s name in the following way: “Kendrick t*” or “Kendrick tm” and change
the field from Title and Abstract to Author. If you don’t know the author’s initial,
you need to type “Kendrick*”. Quotation marks must be used.
Journal searching
To search by journal, change the drop-down field to Journal name and key in the
Journal title. You will need to include quotation marks.
http://librarysupport.shef.ac.uk/databasesearching.pdf
Copyright © 2012, The University of Sheffield
Displaying your results
Click on the number of results in the Hits column (shown in blue) to display a list
of records on you topic(s) in date order. If you prefer to view your results in a
different order use the SORT button, located at the top of the list of results, to
change your options.
If there is a link to the full text article, clicking on the supplier’s link under full text
(shown in blue) should display the whole article which can be saved or printed
free of charge. You may be prompted to enter your NHS Athens details again sp
look for an Athens login if the content is not immediately evident. If the Library
stocks the journal details will appear here also.
Click on the title of a record to see further details, usually and summary or
abstract, thesaurus terms and language.
To return to your list of results click on Current Search Results in the
navigation bar shown towards the top of the screen.
Make selections of relevant records, click the box to the left of the record
number and moving through the pages of results using NEXT. You can
select a full page by clicking the Select all on the page option at the foot
of the screen.
http://librarysupport.shef.ac.uk/databasesearching.pdf
Copyright © 2012, The University of Sheffield
Managing selected results
Manage your search results using the panel at the foot of each page, as
shown below. Select documents from your results, then choose Short (a
brief citation), Medium (includes the abstract) or Full format (the whole
record). Actions are available to Export or Email selected results in MS
Word, HTML, PDF, Text or XML formats.
Use Email Results to send the results to a specific email address.
Full text links and details are not currently exported in any format.
You can save your search strategy to use at a later date.
To return to the search screen, click Search and Limits in the
navigation bar shown towards the top of the screen.
Contact for further information
If you have further queries or would like to arrange a session using these
or other resources please contact Jo Marsden – Outreach Librarian for
STH [email protected]
http://librarysupport.shef.ac.uk/databasesearching.pdf
Copyright © 2012, The University of Sheffield