Mastering PubMed For Physiotherapists

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Mastering PubMed for Physiotherapists

Eugene Barsky, Physiotherapy Outreach Librarian, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, UBC

Summer 2007

eugene.barsky@ubc.ca

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/physio/

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Agenda

Introduction

Goals and structure of the workshop

What is PubMed and why to us it

Review of simple search in PubMed

Review of advanced search in PubMed

myNCBI – introduction

Questions

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Goals of the Workshop

Understand what is PubMed and how it works

Understand the limitations of simple keyword searches

Comprehend some of the powerful techniques using Medical Subject Headings options

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What is PubMed

Created and maintained by the U.S. National Library of Medicine,

Over 17 million citations From almost 5,000 health and life science journals Goes back to 1950s Updated daily Mostly bibliographic information 1 million free full text article via PubMed Central

(PMC) - http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/

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How to access PubMed

www.pubmed.gov Google PubMed

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Simple search - keywords

For a quick and dirty “Google-style” search, just type your

keywords into PubMed’s Search box

Let’s try to find some literature on effectiveness of continuous

passive motion (CPM) therapy for knee replacement rehab

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Simple search - keywords

PubMed located 40 articles (from 17 million) that mention all words

we typed in the search box.

This is a good quick and dirty search for such a small topic…

However, we don’t want those articles that just mention our

keywords; we want article that focus on effectiveness of CPM for

knee replacement rehab! Aha…for that, we need to understand Medical Subject Headings http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/

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Introducing MeSH

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH): U.S. National Library of Medicine's

controlled vocabulary Access MeSH from the left-hand sidebar

Note: Controlled vocabularies bring all variations of a concept under one “approved” term or phrase which makes searching more

efficient (Example: Neoplasm is the controlled term in MeSH for variations and synonyms of

cancer, tumors, etc.)

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Using MeSH

To locate an appropriate MeSH for your term, search PubMed

MeSH sub-database

Let’s try to see what PubMed uses for knee replacement Go to MeSH and type your terms in…

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Using MeSH

The MeSH term is Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee

Read the blurb to decide whether this MeSH term is relevant

Select one or more subheadings if appropriate – these will narrow your search down to more specific areas of research

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Using MeSH

Steps involved: First, we select a proper MeSH (click the checkbox) We select “Search Box with And” from the “Sent to” drop down

menu

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Using MeSH

Then, we click on PubMed search button to search all 17 million articles for our selected MeSH topic

There are 282 articles that are about knee replacement rehab in PubMed

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Using MeSH

Let’s do the same with our second term – CPM therapy The term is > Motion Therapy, Continuous Passive

355 citations are retrieved

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Search history

See your last searches under “History” tab Alive for eight (8) hours only

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Combine results

For both CPM therapy and knee replacement rehab use AND search operator

Only 21 articles retrieved (down from 41 at the beginning) – more precise searches, thanks to MeSH!!

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Limits

Limit to EBP results, age groups, language, focus on specific

profession, etc. from the Limits tab

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Limits

My limits:

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Limits

Limits appear in a yellow bar

Now we have only three (3) studies – Wow!

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Display

To view Abstracts, etc., change format from Display drop-down menu

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Sort

Sort your results: Publication Date Author’s name Journal

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Related Articles

Click to view closely related articles Note that you loose everything you applied so far: MeSH, limits,

etc.

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Clipboard

Store your selected articles in Clipboard for eight (8) hours

Email, print, and do more with your articles after sending them

to the Clipboard, via “Send To” drop down menu

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Find a citation

If you know what citation you are looking for, the easiest way to locate it in PubMed would be using “Single Citation Matcher”

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myNCBI

Using freely available PubMed myNCBI you can:

Receive alerts about new articles published in your area of

expertise

Receive table of contents of your favorite journals (if indexed in

PubMed)

Save selected abstracts of articles into your collections

And much more…

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myNCBI

To register (FREE!) to myNCBI: Click “Register” on the “MyNCBI” header.

Enter a User Name (3-10 alpha-numeric characters) and a Password

(6-8 alpha-numeric characters).

Choose a security question and answer so we can reset your

password if you forget it.

You can enter a default e-mail address. This e-mail address will be

used for both automatic e-mail updates and the Send to E-mail

feature in PubMed.

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Contact Info

Eugene BarskyPhysiotherapy Outreach LibrarianIrving K. Barber Learning CentreUniversity of British Columbia1961 East MallVancouver, BCPhone: (604) 827-4088Fax: (604) 822-9122Email: eugene.barsky@ubc.ca MSN: eugene.barsky@ubc.ca Blog: http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/physio/ Web: http://www.ikebarberlearningcentre.ubc.ca/