Searching PubMed
Tips for searching PubMed to locate relevant and recent primary research articles containing interventions.
- PubMed
PubMed provides access to more than 23 million bibliographic citations primarily drawn from MEDLINE, as well as publisher-supplied citations, in-process and "ahead-of-print" citations.
Tips and Strategies
Identify the important concepts for your search, and enter the concepts into the PubMed search box.
- Choose one concept representing the intervention.
- EXAMPLE: "strength training"
- Choose another concept representing what the intervention is examining or potentially affecting.
- EXAMPLE: "fitness"
- Check to see if your search results seem to be on-topic. If they're not, consider whether there are other keywords you might use to represent your concepts.
Tips to focus your search:
- consider if your concepts might be too general (too many results) or too specific (too few results), and modify your concpts or keywords accordingly
- EXAMPLE: "exercise" could be a more general term that would retrieve more results than "strength training"
Limit your search results by publication date:
- We want to limit to articles published in the last 5 years.
- EXAMPLE: At the top of the left-hand sidebar, use the date slider to select the date range: 2020 - 2024.
- TIP: you can expand the size of the slider using the expand button.
- You can also use the "publication date" filter at the bottom of the sidebar to create a "Custom Range" of years.
- TIP: If you're using a small screen and do not see a sidebar, look for the "filters" button in the top menu.
- EXAMPLE: At the top of the left-hand sidebar, use the date slider to select the date range: 2020 - 2024.
Are there more filters or limiters available than what is displayed?
- At the bottom of the left-hand sidebar, click the "Additional Filters" button to view all of the filters available.
- If "age" or "sex" is an important factor in your search, add the appropriate filter to your search options.
- EXAMPLE: Check the box for "Aged 65+" and then click the "Show" button to add this filter to your search options.
- Now select this new filter to further limit your search results.
- EXAMPLE: Check the box for "Aged 65+" and then click the "Show" button to add this filter to your search options.
Limit your results to primary research articles with interventions.
- This can be challenging in other databases, but PubMed makes it pretty easy.
- EXAMPLE: Look at the "Article Type" category in the filter sidebar, and select the filter "Clinical Trial"
- A clinical trial by definition is a primary research article with an intervention.
- TIP: A "Randomized Controlled Trial" or RCT is a specific type of clinical trial considered the highest standard of evidence.
- TIP: you can usually identify the intervention in the "Methods" or "Methodology" section of the article or in the article abstract.
- EXAMPLE: Look at the "Article Type" category in the filter sidebar, and select the filter "Clinical Trial"
What about "Review" articles?
- "Review" articles are secondary research, not primary, but they can be excellent sources to identify relevant primary research articles if you can find a review article on your topic.
Finding the Full Text of an article:
- Click on an article title to view the full record in PubMed.
- Check the full text links / buttons in the right-hand sidebar.
- If the link / button says "PubMed Central" or "PMC" or "open access" or "free" then the full text will be available.
- Otherwise, you may see a link to the publisher's website where you can check to see whether or not the full text is available for free.
- Always check Gleeson Library's "Full Text Finder" which will let you know if you have access to the full text via the library databases and subscriptions.
- TIP: You must access PubMed via the library's link in order for the library's "Full Text Finder" to appear.
- If the link / button says "PubMed Central" or "PMC" or "open access" or "free" then the full text will be available.
- If there is no full text available anywhere, you can use the library's Interlibrary Loan service to request the article from another library. This is free for you, and we can usually get articles very quickly.
- Check the full text links / buttons in the right-hand sidebar.
Cite your articles in APA format
- PubMed can help you cite your articles in APA format.
- EXAMPLE: In PubMed, click on the title of the article to display the full record, and then click on the "Cite" button in the right-hand sidebar.
- Change the "format" to APA, and copy / paste the result.
- EXAMPLE: In PubMed, click on the title of the article to display the full record, and then click on the "Cite" button in the right-hand sidebar.
- TIP: with any online-generated citation, you always need to examine the citation for accuracy.