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Medicine, Dentistry and Healthcare Sciences for Healthcare Library: Literature search planning

Subject guide for HSC Medicine, Dentistry and Healthcare Sciences staff who are members of the Healthcare Library of Northern Ireland

Literature search planning

See below for quick tips and guidance on planning medicine, dentistry and biomedical sciences literature searches.

Any queries about planning searches and using databases should be directed to Richard Fallis, Specialist Librarian for Medicine, Dentistry and Healthcare Sciences: Richard.Fallis@healthcarelibrary.qub.ac.uk

Before accessing databases, work through the steps below in order to plan your search. An example search query is provided, based on the topic of the following article:

Wood, G.K., Sargent, B.F., Ahmad, ZUA. et al. Post-hospitalisation COVID-19 cognitive deficits at one year are global and associated with elevated brain injury markers and grey matter volume reduction. Nat Med (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03309-8 

Screenshot of the title section of an article in the journal Nature Medicine, entitled "Post-hospitalisation COVID-19 cognitive deficits at one year are global and associated with elevated brain injury markers and grey matter volume reduction".

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Step 1: Clearly define your search topic or question

"What cognitive deficits are associated with COVID-19 infection?"

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Step 2: Identify different search concepts, and connect them with AND

"What cognitive deficits are associated with COVID-19 infection?"

cognitive deficits

AND

COVID-19

Boolean operator AND is used to combine searches for different concepts.

This example search has 2 core concepts, but other searches may have more, depending on the topic.

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Step 3: List any relevant synonyms for these concepts, and connect them with OR

cognitive deficits OR cognitive impairment

AND

COVID-19 OR coronavirus disease 2019 OR SARS-CoV-2

Boolean operator OR is used to combine searches for similar terms or concepts.

Including synonyms (alternative terms) is optional, but useful for increasing search sensitivity.

Some sources of synonyms (alternative terms):

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Step 4: Add truncation symbol (*) if needed

Consider adding the truncation symbol * to the end of word stems to find singular, plural and other forms of the relevant word in a single search. Truncating terms is optional, but it may make your search more sensitive, and therefore effective at finding relevant results.

cognitive deficit* OR cognitive impairment*

AND 

COVID-19 OR coronavirus disease 2019 OR SARS-CoV-2 

In this example search, deficit* will find deficit, deficits, deficit's etc, and impairment* will find impairment, impairments, impairment's etc.

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Step 5: Choose relevant search limits or filters

Optional, but useful for narrowing results down. Examples:

  • English language
  • Elderly patients
  • Review articles
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Step 5: Decide which databases to search

Good medicine and healthcare database searches typically start by using PubMed (for quick searches) or MEDLINE ALL (for advanced searches).

To add robustness, searching Embase is also recommended.

Additional databases may also be searched. Please email Richard Fallis (r.fallis@qub.ac.uk) for advice on which databases to use.

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Working through the steps above gives you a search plan that be adapted for, and run in, various databases:

cognitive deficit* OR cognitive impairment*

AND

COVID-19 OR coronavirus disease 2019 OR SARS-CoV-2

Limit results to: English language review articles about elderly patients