How to search for literature in the medical and health Sciences - a practical approach.

1. Take control of your PhD journey–
Literature searching for medicine
and the health sciences
Eirik Reierth & Grete Overvåg
UiT University Library,
October, 2016

2. Where it all starts….
uit.no/ub
1. Access library search by typing
something into the search box
2. Access the databases list by clicking
the ‘Databases’ link

3. What are controlled search vocabularies?
• A set of hierarchically ordered terms
(subject headings) that are used to
«tag» all the documents that are
indexed in the database.
• Whats the point of them? There are
lots of ways to name one phenomenon
or concept. Using the controlled search
terms allows you to search without
having to find all the various
names/synonyms for your self.

4. Buidling a keyword search – General step by
step method
• Locate the main concepts in your topic or research question.
• Find and list appropriate terms (controlled and otherwise) for each of your
concepts seperately.
• Combine terms for the same concept into sets using OR (if necessary).
• Combine sets from previous step using AND to find whatever is in the intersection
of your concepts.
• Take notes during the whole process!

5. But how do I find the terms? I
• Use the built in option for finding controlled terms
(subject headings) in the database you are searching.
• Use sources you already have and know to be
relevant.
• Take note of authors’ own keywords, if any.
• Locate the record in your chosen database and
take note of the subject headings used to index it.
• Ask someone even more expert than yourself

6. But how do I find the terms? II
• Find a systematic review on your own or a related
topic. Flip through to the search strategy in the
methods section. Read and learn.
• Cochrane Library
• Campbell collaboration
• Review in a journal

7. Operators, truncation, and wildcards
• OR: Use to combine terms that are synonyms or nearly
synonyms – terms you think will capture a single concept.
Expands your search.
• AND: Use to combine sets from two or more different concepts to
find sources in the intersection. Limits your search.
• adjn (Ovid), Nn (Cinahl & Pubmed): To connect words appearing
within n or fewer words of each other.
• * or $: Truncation. (e.g. therap* - finds you therapy, therapies,
therapeutic etc.)
• ? or * : Replaces 0, 1 or several letters. (e.g.. tumo?r – finds you
both tumor and tumour).

8. AND/OR

9. The Search Building Schema
(See seperate file/handout)

10. A selection of useful resources on searching
Higgins, J. P. T., & Green, S. (red.). (2011). Cochrane handbook for
systematic reviews of interventions. version 5.1.0 [updated March
2011]: The Cochrane Collaboration. Avialable at: http://cochrane-
handbook.org. [Part 2, Chapter 6]
Sampson, M., McGowan, J., Cogo, E., Grimshaw, J., Moher, D., &
Lefebvre, C. (2009). An evidence-based practice guideline for the peer
review of electronic search strategies. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology,
62(9), 944-952. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2008.10.012
http://www.phdontrack.net/review-and-discover/systematic-searching/
Bjørndal, A., Flottorp, S., & Klovning, A. (2013). Kunnskapshåndtering i
medisin og helsefag (3 utg.). Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk.

11. Library Search/ORIA
Log in with your UiT
username/password.
Request books/articles from other
libraries or renew your loans.
Search for keywords, «phrases», names or «full titles»
Use * to truncate your searches.

12. Looking for the PhD work of others?
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
Global (PQDT Global)
• The world's most comprehensive
collection of full-text dissertations
and theses
– US, UK, Ireland
– Millions of searchable citations (1861 )
– 1 million in full-text (pdf), primarily 1997 
– 2 millions available for purchase in print
– 70 000 (in full-text) added each year,
partnership with 700 leading institutions
worldwide
• Coverage
– Business and Economics, Medical Sciences,
Science, Technology, Agriculture, Social
Sciences, Arts, Humanities
• Not indexed in Oria. Access this
database by clicking the
‘Databases’-link at uit.no/ub
wvsu.edu.ph
proquest.com

13. Cinahl
• Offering complete coverage of English-
language nursing journals and publications.
The coverage is nursing, biomedicine, health
sciences librarianship, consumer health and
17 allied health disciplines
• CINAHL® provides indexing for more than
3,000 journals from the fields of nursing and
allied health. The database contains more
than 2.9 million records dating back to 1981
• Indexing for journals, books and book
chapters, dissertations, selected conference
proceedings, standards of practice.
• Internal subject thesaurus with over 7,000
terms—2,000 unique to CINAHL.
A search-tip:
Looking for search terms?: use Basic Search
If you know what to search for:
you can choose Advanced Search

14. The Ovid databases
PsycINFO
• Broadest and deepest
available indexing of
psychology and psychiatry
• 2500 journals, 4 mln records
including dissertation
abstracts, books and book
chapters
MEDLINE
• Basically PubMed in another
user interface.
• NB! You may want to select the
option that includes non-
indexed citations
EMBASE
• NB! Often overlooked. If you
need to search
PubMed/MEDLINE, then you
need to search EMBASE!
• European sibling of MEDLINE.
• Strong on pharmacology and
related stuff.

15. A few more recommendations
• Multidisciplinary databases
• Hand searching: look through table of contents in central journals
• Search for specific authors
• Take a look at some important research instiutions’ web pages
• Grey literature: Open Grey (http://www.opengrey.eu), Grey matters
(https://www.cadth.ca/resources/finding-evidence/grey-matters)