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Finding Full-text in PubMed@MGH
Look for this symbol in any article in PubMed and click on it to link to Treadwell's full-text.
The new PubMed homepage looks different, but still offers the same basic search bar and has the "advanced" option available immediately below the bar. From this page, you can also navigate to helpful pages under the "Learn", "Find", "Download", and "Explore" menu options.
Advanced Search section of the PubMed User Guide.
When using PubMed's Basic Search, you should:
Information provided by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). This information and more can be found on the NLM New PubMed website.
Searching Features
If you want to know more about what terms and phrases PubMed is searching after you have entered your search terms into the basic search box, you can find out. PubMed searches more than just the words/phrases that you type to make less work for you (automatically searching plural versions, variations in phrasing, etc.). Checking what other words/phrases PubMed is searching can be beneficial if you are not getting the results that you want. Follow the steps below for the way to locate what these other phrases are:
1. Type in your search terms (in this example "de quervain's tenosynovitis treatment")
2. On the results page, click "Advanced" under the search bar.
3. Scroll down to the "History and Search Details" section. Click on the > below the Details heading.
4. You should now be able to see the full search that PubMed is running. This will show you all MeSH terms that are being used, as well as synonyms, translations, and British/American term mapping.
1. Add your first search term to the query box
2. Add an additional search term into the "enter a search term" box. Use the dropdown arrow in the blue "Add" box to decide whether you want the first and second search terms to be joined by "AND", "OR", or "NOT".
3. Continue to add your search terms. The best way to make sure that you have all of your search terms is to write them out beforehand (in PICO-style format if applicable) and then add them to your search.
4. Once you are done adding your search terms, you can click "search" next to the query box to see your results.
If you are curious to see how many results you'll get with your search: instead of hitting the search button, you can use the dropdown arrow and select "add to history".
You can then scroll to the History and Search details section. The number written in blue under the Results heading will tell you how many results there are for that search. This may be a good indicator to know whether you need to expand or refine your search without having to leave the search screen.
As you create searches and they accumulate in your search history, you can choose to combine them in order to create one big search. You might be doing this if you are trying to refine/expand your search or if you decide its easier to combine smaller searches instead of initially creating one larger search. There are two different ways to combine searches:
1. On the Advanced Search page, scroll down to the History and Search Details box. Click the "..." under the Actions heading of one of the searches that you would like to use.
Select "Add query", which will move the search into the query box.
You can continue to add other searches to the query box in the same way, although this time you will be provided with the Boolean operators "AND", "OR", and "NOT" to combine searches.
You can now run your new search through PubMed or add it to your history. As with the example provided, you can see that combining searches provided a much smaller number of results than either of the two searches individually. Depending on your searches and the Boolean operator that you use to connect them, the number of results may be much larger or smaller.
OR
2. The other option to combine searches is to type the search numbers into the query box. Search numbers can be found under the Search heading in the History and Search Details section. Use Boolean operators to combine the search numbers in the query box.
You can run the search through PubMed or add it to your search history. In the image below, you can see that both methods will bring about the same results.
More information about Advance Search options can be found on the Advance Search section of the PubMed User Guide.
Information can be found on the NLM New PubMed website, where there is also a video available to walk through this information.
On the results page of a search in PubMed, the left side bar will have filters that you can apply, which will help to narrow your search results, and hopefully get you closer to what you are looking for.
You can filter results based on publication date, article type, and text availability. If you want to filter by more than that, you can select the "additional filters" option at the bottom of the sidebar.
Make your selections for which filters you would like to apply to your search. You can 1. pick the broader category of filter that you would like (article type, age, etc.), 2. check off what specific filters you would like to apply, and 3. click "show" to see those filters appear on your search screen.
You should now see your additional filters appear on the left side of the screen, beneath the filters that were already there.
As you apply filters, you should be able to see that the filters applied appear at the top of your search screen with a yellow highlight around them. Please know that when filters within the same category are applied (i.e. when multiple boxes are checked under one heading), PubMed is searching them using "OR" so you will have more results with more boxes checked in one category.
You can select "clear all" if you want to remove all filters. If you are looking to remove just a few filters, you can simply un-check them in the left sidebar.
Using MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) in PubMed
When searching for MeSH terms, you will be redirected to the legacy/old PubMed interface to search for these terms. After you have added terms to the search builder and select "search PubMed", you will be brought back to the new PubMed.
Interested in a text tutorial? Click the PDF link below:
The full functionality of PubMed is now available on mobile devices. The new PubMed interface and website has been created not only to enhance searching and looking through records, but has also been optimized for use on mobile devices. Full text access is available on a mobile device.
