Search health databases
Learn how to use the major health databases to find the best available evidence for your research
PubMed is a database of peer-reviewed biomedical literature. By searching PubMed, you will be searching Medline, plus additional recent content. PubMed search is freely available online, however to connect to full text articles from the University of Adelaide Library, use the link above.
Use the interactive activity below for an introduction to using PubMed.
Search PubMed effectively
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Search PubMed using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)MeSH terms are official words or phrases selected to represent medical concepts. Each article in PubMed is indexed with one or more MeSH terms which describe what the article is about. Think of them as tags, which make it easier for you to locate all of the articles on a specific concept.
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Create a basic logic grid1. Start with a basic logic grid of relevant keywords
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Create a PubMed logic grid and run the search2. Further develop your logic grid so that it will work effectively in PubMed, then run the search.
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PubMed results screen3. Now that you have run your search, learn more about using the results
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PubMed advanced searching tips4. Need more help? Learn how to use all of the advanced search features of PubMed
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PubMed: Save searches & set alertsPubMed makes it easy to save your searches, create collections and set up email alerts.
PubMed videos (Legacy PubMed)
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Using a Logic Grid: PubMedThis video shows you how to use a logic grid to make searching easier, and to avoid getting in a muddle.
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PubMed Field Codes: MeSHThis video introduces you to MeSH (the indexing language of PubMed) and shows you how it works.
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PubMed Field Codes: Titles, Abstracts and Text WordsThis video introduces you to some additional fields to use in your PubMed searches.
Other PubMed tools
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Yale MeSH Analyzer toolAnalyse Medical Subject Headings to design and refine your searches
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PubReminerA tool for PubMed query building and literature mining.
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PubMed & EndNote: exporting citationsLearn how to import large numbers of citations from PubMed into EndNote
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PubMed and journal title abbreviations in EndNoteLearn how to import the Medical Terms List so that full journal titles display in your bibliography when using the Harvard referencing style.
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Exporting PubMed results to CovidenceUsing PubMed text files to export results
- Last Updated: Dec 17, 2020 9:00 AM
- URL: https://libguides.adelaide.edu.au/searchinghealthdatabases
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