PUBMED Help Guide

If you will be using PubMed a fair amount, it helps to learn how to use some of its advanced features. 

(1.) Quick, imprecise searching

One way to use search PubMed is to do a quick and dirty search like the one immediately below. However, it won't get you the focused results that come with using PubMed's "controlled vocabulary", discussed in (2) below.

Search example: you are looking for literature about the impact of diabetes on the heart or prostate, and the economic consequences of same. Here is a simple search you can do:

Notice that the search terms are joined using AND and OR (CAPITALIZED). Also, note that you can select various limits for the search.

(2). Precise, systematic searching

A far more systematic or focused way of searching is to using PubMed's "MeSH vocabulary". If you will be doing lots of searching in PubMed, it will help to learn how to use these.

 "MeSH is NLM's controlled vocabulary used for indexing articles for MEDLINE/PubMed. MeSH terminology provides a consistent way to retrieve information that may use different terminology for the same concepts."

For tutorials on how to do so, on the left-hand side of the PubMed Interface, select "MeSH Database". This brings you to a screen on which there are three tutorials:   

Click on the tutorials to listen to them. After you do so, use MeSH database to build up searches. See below for examples. Notice in searches 14 and 18 below, limits are imposed. These are taken off in search 19. All the searches limit the MeSH headers (Diabetes Mellitus, Heart Diseases, and Prostatic Neoplasms) to a specifically economics focus. Experiment a bit. For example, 18 had no results, but then taking off the limits (e.g., for age) increased the number of results.

NOTE:

One MeSH header that you may find of use in ECO 395 is:

"Economics, Pharmaceutical

Economic aspects of the fields of pharmacy and pharmacology as they apply to the development and study of medical economics in rational drug therapy and the impact of pharmaceuticals on the cost of medical care. Pharmaceutical economics also includes the economic considerations of the pharmaceutical care delivery system and in drug prescribing, particularly of cost-benefit values. (From J Res Pharm Econ 1989;1(1); PharmacoEcon 1992;1(1))
Year introduced: 1994"

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