This guide provides instruction for searching in PubMed and guidance on issues related to academic integrity, including citing sources. This guide also includes links to additional online resources that can be used to discover evidence-based interventions in public health-related areas.

Research Article Databases

Evidence-Based Medicine Research

PubMed Clinical Queries

This free service from PubMed provides several methods (filters) for extracting EBM materials from the PubMed database. By design the clinical studies topic areas are limited. Use full PubMed if comprehensive searching is required.

The PubMed single search box offers a quick and easy way to start searching for articles on your topic. Enter keywords or phrases that capture the primary aspects of your topic into the default PubMed search box. Don't use full sentences or punctuation or search operators like AND/OR/NOT.

See the image below or watch this short PubMed Find Articles on a Topic video tutorial.

Once you have some search results, you can explore the MeSH terms (Medical Subject Headings) assigned to article records to look for additional relevant search terms. Think of MeSH terms like "tags" (that are often used in social media posts). MeSH terms are specific to PubMed and provide a consistent language to describe or label concepts that various authors may describe differently.

The example article record below shows its MeSH terms and highlights several that might be helpful for revising the initial search to find related articles.

Search results can be refined to include only those articles that provide some level of evidence that the intervention/program works. Use the See all article type filters link at the bottom of the Article Type filter section to select additional options to show in the list.

Uncheck filters or use the Clear all link (at top of search results column) before doing the next search. PubMed filters are "sticky" as they do not automatically reset between searches.

PubMed's Advanced Search page and options can be accessed from the "Advanced" link under the search box (on the various pages where you will find the search box...two options are shown directly below).

Default Landing page

Search Results page

From the Advanced Search page, you can tell PubMed to search for terms/phrases in specific PubMed search fields. In some cases, this can help to narrow or focus a search that has too many results. Some search field options include: Title, Abstract, Journal, MeSH terms (various iterations), Title/Abstract combined, etc. The image below shows a search strategy that tells PubMed to look only for articles where the designated search terms show up in the MeSH field of the article record. Furthermore the specific strategy shown tells PubMed to look only for those articles where the term in the MeSH field has been identified as a major (not minor or secondary) concept present in the article (meaning this is what the article primarily addresses).

Also from the Advanced Search page, you can view your searching history and use it to construct new search strategies without retyping all your keywords/phrases. The image below shows a new search constructed from two previous searches.

With Google Scholar you can search broadly (across several disciplines) with one search.  You can use Google Scholar to find peer-reviewed articles, but you will also find pre-print copies of articles, conference papers, white papers, patents, legal opinions and more.

1. Before you start -- go to Scholar Preferences to enter and select Oregon State University in the Library Links field.
2. Enter your keywords in the search box.
3. Browse results, making sure to use the library's subscriptions to get access to the text of the articles where you can.