This is an old presentation chosen for reminiscing and uploaded for the purposes of a CPD course learning about web 2.0

1. Getting the Most From an
Advanced Search on Medline
Using Dialog
By
Stacey Louise Richards

2. Before Beginning Your Search
• To give your search direction and keep
you focused have a clear idea of the
clinical question you are trying to answer.
• Identify the significant keywords.
• Use a PICO grid to help you

3. The PICO Grid
If you have to convert a patient’s condition or problem into
a clear clinical question, you may find a PICO grid useful.
ELEMENT DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE
P Patient/Pop/People Disease/Condition
Characteristics of the
patient/population e.g.
Gender, age, ethnicity
I Intervention What do you want to do with
this patient (e.g. treat,
diagnose, observe)?
C Comparison What are the alternative
intervention options (e.g.
placebo, different drug,
surgery)?
O Outcome(s) What are the relevant
outcomes (e.g. quality of
life, costs, morbidity)?

4. The PICO grid cont….
By filling in the blanks you can then use the concepts
identified in the PICO grid to formulate an answerable
question:
Among/In ____________________ P
Does ____________________ I
Versus ____________________ C
Affect/Result in ________________O
For example:
In a 72yr old woman with osteoarthritis of the knee does
Cox-2 inhibitor use versus other NSAIDS result in less
GI bleeding and increased pain control?

5. Medical Subject Headings
• Searching MEDLINE is most effectively done using
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). All articles are
indexed and assigned a number of subject headings
before being added to Medline. By using these terms to
search the database you will retrieve a maximum
number of relevant articles.
• Using MeSH avoids some of the pitfalls of free text
searching:
– Synonyms
– word endings
– differences in spellings
– Lay and medical terms

6. Medical Subject Headings Cont.
• Type your keyword into the search box
and ensure that the Thesaurus mapping
box is ticked.

7. Medical Subject Headings Cont.
• When you click search a list of subject headings
will appear.
• Choose one that best suits what you are looking
for.
If unsure use the
scope notes to find
the definition of the
index term

8. Medical Subject Headings cont.
To retrieve very specific
information, concentrate on a
single subject heading, but if your
interest is more general you may
wish to include all the subject
headings linked to your area of
interest. Do this by clicking
the box in the Explode column.
Click the box in the Major column
if you want to retrieve articles in
which the topic is one of the major
issues under discussion in the
paper.

9. Medical Subject Headings cont.
• Combining searches – when using MeSH
combine searches using “OR, OR, And.”
• Step 1 - Combine your search terms and their
MeSH terms with “OR” first
• Step 2 - Then combine your “OR’d” searches
and any remaining search terms where MeSH
wasn’t used with “AND”
• Step 1 ensures that the maximum number of
results are retrieved, by finding articles with your
search term or the MeSH term
• By using “AND” this brings all the searches
together and retrieves the specific results that
contain all of the search terms.

10. “OR, OR, AND”

11. Further Limits
• To get more specific
results a search can
be limited by using
the limit options under
the search box.
Options include:
Publication year; age;
gender; language and
document type.

12. Other Ways to Search
• By using the drop down box after the search box
you can:
• Search for journal titles, authors or by date.
• You can also select to search only abstracts,
titles or the whole document.

13. Other Ways to Search Cont.
• Free text – This involves searching without using
Thesaurus Mapping. Keywords must be chosen
with care and attention paid to things such as,
synonyms, word endings and lay/medical terms.
Not the best way to search as there is potential
to miss relevant material.
• Truncation – When free text searching the
symbol $ can be added to keywords to find all
variations of that word.

14. Key Points & Tips To Remember
• When doing a free text search spelling is critical.
MEDLINE will automatically search for alternative
American or English spellings, and also plurals.
• Beware when truncating that you may retrieve terms that
are not relevant. e.g. for articles mentioning
haemorrhage(s), haemorrhaging or haemorrhaged: don’t
truncate as haemorrhag* as you may also find articles on
haemorrhagic fever.
• Dialog does not allow punctuation (except for $, ? and -,
all of which have specific uses). Instead of Down’s
syndrome, enter Down syndrome; instead of Epstein-
Barr virus, enter Epstein Barr virus.

15. Key Points & Tips To Remember Cont.
• If a number is part of your search phrase, e.g. type 2
diabetes, you must enter it as type ‘2’ diabetes, i.e. use
single quote marks around the number, otherwise the 2
will be interpreted as a search set.
• When searching for authors use Thesaurus Mapping to
bring up a list of all authors of the same name or similar,
it also shows initial or first names by typing (author
surname-?)
• If you find a record that is highly relevant, view the full
record with index terms. Browsing these index headings
may suggest further index terms that you could use.
Index terms are also hyperlinked, so clicking on a term
does a search for that term.

16. Remember
• If you need any help with searching then
always come and ask at the library.
• Any questions?