PubMed is a research database providing abstracts in medicine, nursing, dentistry, allied health, and in other health sciences areas. PubMed is a product of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and includes citations in the health sciences journals going back over 70 years.
PubMed includes over 30 million citations for medical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Note that these citations do not often include full text. That is why even PubMed is freely available at pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov you should use the PubMed@KU version which will include links to full text within the KU collection.
From PubMed's homepage you can sign into your personal account (or set up a new one), run a basic or link to the advanced search, or link to more advanced or focused PubMed searches such as MeSH, Single Citation Matcher, and Clinical Queries.
Running a search in PubMed can be straightforward: Type in your search terms and click Search. For a basic search you do not need to add Boolean operators (e.g., AND, OR, and NOT). PubMed will, when possible, map your search terms to subject terms. (See the MeSH tab for more information about this.) For example, you can just type polycythemia treatment adults and then run your search.
The boxes below will help you understand the layout of PubMed and how to navigate its various pages, starting with PubMed's homepage.
When you open an individual article's entry you will get a detailed view of the article. This includes (if available) a full abstract, related articles, and cited by articles. From this view you can save an article's information. Review the hotspot guide below for more information below.
While PubMed encourages using basic searches, there is also the option to build a guided advanced search. This can be done using the advanced search view (which also allows you to see past searches from your current session) or by using Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT.
When you open the advanced search you will see the page is divided into three sections. The first has a search box, but unlike the basic search you can choose to search specific fields here such title, author, etc.
You can type these out in the basic search box by appending your search terms with the correct tag. For example, searching on cancer[TIAB] will search for cancer, but only when it appears in a title or abstract field of an article. You can see a full list of tags and descriptions here.
The middle portion of the advanced search contains a query box which allows you to build a guided search using specific fields and combining terms with the Booleans AND, OR, and NOT.
The bottom third shows you your search history for the current session, as well as your search details (click the dropdown arrow to see the details). These details will show you any term mapping for MeSH that PubMed is doing automatically for you.
You can combine search with Actions and download the search details as well.
There are two ways to use search terms in PubMed: as keywords and as subject terms--specifically called Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in PubMed. MeSH allows you to search by topic and by meaning, rather than just matching text words that may or may not represent the topic you are researching.
To get started with MeSH, click the MeSH Database link at the bottom right of the PubMed homepage.
On this next page you can search for the topic you are interested in. Note, that this page retains the old look of PubMed. As you type in you concept PubMed will populate the search box with suggestions for concept matches.
The results of your search will start with the best match. In the image below, if you search for cancer PubMed will show that Neoplasms is the MeSH term for that concept. You can add it to your search with the box on the right, or click on Neoplasms to get more information about the entry.
When you open Neoplasms you will get a wealth of details on the term. Some of this is basic information such as the definition and entry terms. You will also see options for focusing your search such as Subheadings and Restrict to MeSH Major Topic.
If you scroll further down in the entry you will see a hierarchy of subject terms. This can help you focus your search more broadly or more narrowly. Some MeSH terms appear in multiple hierarchies.
