Guide to Searching Medline, PsycINFO and CINAHL

Transcription

1 Guide to Searching Medline, PsycINFO and CINAHL Searching via the Search 2.0 interface 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. Go to the following website address: Next, click on the blue Search Healthcare Databases link under the online resources heading and log in with your BSMHfT Athens username and password

2 2 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). 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).

3 3 From the list of blue subject headings that appear, select the most relevant by putting a tick next to the select checkbox. (If you 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:

4 4 Next, delete your previous keywords ( light therapy ) from the search bar, and type in your new search term: seasonal affective disorder 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.

5 5 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 Searches button. You should now get a third line of results, as below: 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. Go down to the bottom of the screen where you can see the publication year limits. Click on the dropdown arrows to choose the publication years you need to limit your articles to.

6 6 Then type the number of the search line you wish to apply the limit to into the search box, remove the tick from the Thesaurus Mapping box, and click on the Search button. 5. Viewing documents, selecting and saving them Click on the final number of results to view your documents. (In this case it is 81).

7 7 To read abstracts, click on the titles of documents or click in the Show Abstracts checkbox. When you have decided which references you want to save, put a tick in the check boxes next to the ones you want. Results will display ten on a page, so click on the next link at the bottom of the screen to see more articles. 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. 6. Extra Features: Saving Searches and 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 Rows button instead.

8 8 You will then see a screen where you will be able to enter a name for your search and save it. Saved searches appear in a link on the left hand side of the search 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 ed to you. To set up an alert, you would need to follow the same steps as for saving a search, but then click on the Save & Create Alert button at the end. 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 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: anita.phul@bsmhft.nhs.uk or 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.

9 9 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 will 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 four days to obtain articles in this way so please allow for a few days. To order articles in full text, you can fill out an online form for them if you go to the website below or follow the links from the library website: 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.

10 10 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.