Embase – Building search strategies 21 March 2012

Embase for biomedical searching: Building search strategies

Your host: Chris Flemming Your presenter: Ann-Marie Roche

Welcome to our Embase webinar!

• Webinar control panel:

• ‘chat’ or ‘ask a question’ for questions

and comments

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• Q&A after presentation

Need to know

Registering in Embase

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•Setting up email alerts•Saving your searches•Staying up to date

Planning your systematic searching

Planning the search strategy and process in advance helps you to:

•Systematically retrieve the maximum number of highly relevant references

•Extract the relevant answers

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Which

content/publication

types do you need to

cover?

How will you find

the best terms –

comprehensive/

broad/specificDo you need to limit to

specific years, age groups

or specific studies? Are

there specific subheading

for drugs and diseases?

CONTENT SELECTION

Emtree: Biomedical thesaurus, over 60k terms

Embase: Fully indexed: Over 7,700 journals, 1974-

MEDLINE: 2,500 journals unique to Embase, mapped to Embase

indexing, 1950- (including MEDLINE Classic)

Embase Classic:

Digitally scanned and

re-indexed, 1947-1973

AIP and In Process:

Indexing added, from 2009

Conference Abstracts:

Indexing added, from 2009

1947 1950 1974 2009

Embase Content Overview

http://www.embase.com/info/what-is-embase/coverage

FINDING THE BEST TERMS

Start with Emtree

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Search for over 60K terms, including MeSH terms and over 30K drug and chemical terms

Click here to search further in an Embase search form, mapping all synonyms.

Click here to perform an explosion search, if applicable.

3 x updates per year. www.embase.com/info/emtree for more information

Reviewing an Emtree term

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Take note of any Synonyms listed

Consider the term’s History

Look at the CAS registry number(s) displayed

Read the entry provided from Dorland’s dictionary, when available

Backposting

• Emtree terms changes such as trade name and now generic name – How do you find ALL articles, NOT only those indexed from the date of the new term?

• BACKPOSTING!

LIMITING AND REFINING

Search in specific fields

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Perform a search in the title and abstract fields. Fields such as Drug Trade name (:tn) and CAS registry number (:rn) may also be searched.

Filters

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The most common type of search filter is for specific study types. Other filters include publication type .http://embase.com/info/UserFiles/Files/Embase%20indexing%20guide%202012.pdf for a list of Embase study types with definitions (14).

78 drug and disease subheadings

BUILDING SEARCHES IN EMBASE

Review Question

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Find disease management studies for Type II diabetes

•Look for your term in Emtree•Use the disease search form for disease subheadings.•Use major focus to limit your results.

Review Question

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•Tracking the efficacy of saxagliptin in treating diabetes type 2•Comparing the efficacy/safety of dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitors

•Investigate the use of subheadings, such as: ‘Pharmacokinetics’, ‘Adverse Drug Reaction’, ‘Drug Toxicity’•Use explosion to investigate other depeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitors

Poll

The poll should appear on your screen shortly...

More drug and disease combination searches

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Find recent reports of cardiac adverse effects of beta 2 agonists in asthma treatment (e.g. formoterol, salmeterol, indacaterol)

More drug and disease combination searches

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Are there any risks associated with the administration of antibiotics together with digoxin in a patient with congestive heart failure who has contracted pneumonia?

More drug and disease combination searches

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Cost effectiveness of treatment with rosuvastatin compared with other statins

Free-text searching tips and tricks

• Differences between /de and :de, exact search Vs phrase search.

• Truncation and operators, AND, OR, NOT, NEXT, NEAR

• Review Index terms and Abstracts for additional terms

• Remember to consider variant spellings including British and American spellings and terminologyo e.g.,diaper vs nappy; pediatric vs paediatric;

otorhinolaryngology vs ear, nose and throat; overuse injury vs repetitive strain injury

Refer to http://info.embase.com/helpfiles for more guidance and links to materials such as the Quick User Guide.

Saving searches

• Save in personal folders or share your saved searches.

• Edit sub-searches within your main search strategy and re-run

• Re-use a save search - #name in future searches

Registering in Embase

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•Setting up email alerts•Saving your searches•Staying up to date

Questions & Answers

• Q&A will be sent to you by email.• For more information and questions please contact

[email protected]• Our next Embase webinar is scheduled for April 18th and

will be an introductory webinar.• Go to www.trainingdesk.elsevier.com/embase for all training

related materials

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Please fill out the survey that appears on your screen after leaving the webinar.