How to locate references using database specific controlled vocabulary resources together with free-text terms.

Background

In May 2023 the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared “an end to COVID-19 as a public emergency” (1). Nevertheless, the pandemic, during its course and afterwards, has had a substantial impact on people’s physical and mental health. This search strategy aims to identify literature that addresses the impact of covid on people’s psychological wellbeing and overall mental health. Constructed for use in Ovid MEDLINE by the Customer Success Team at Wolters Kluwer Health Learning Research and Practice (WKHLRP), equivalent searches have been similarly constructed for APA PsycInfo and Journals@Ovid. Points to note are as follows.

Bibliographic Databases and Controlled Vocabularies
Ovid MEDLINE and APA PyscInfo are both bibliographic databases, also referred to as Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) databases. That is to say, they are highly detailed sources of information about information, the latter in the form of mostly scientific journal articles, but also systematic reviews, controlled trials, conference proceedings etc.

Where possible full-text versions of bibliographic references are made available via included link-out options to full-text repositories, e.g. PMC. A characteristic of bibliographic databases is their use of a controlled vocabulary for both indexing and searching. For Ovid MEDLINE the controlled vocabulary is provided by the Medical Subject Headings thesaurus (MeSH) (2) which maintained by the US National Library of Medicine, is an indispensable aid to detailed and focused searching. Coupled with free-term searching, this bibliographic database offers a reliable means of looking for information on a topic quickly, yet comprehensively.

Search Strategy Formats: Line-by-Line or Paragraph-Based
There are differing schools of thought as to how to build a search strategy. Some prefer a line-by-line approach. Others are more inclined to enter the search terms one after another in an ongoing stream, separating out search terms and database instructions using combinations of brackets (parentheses) and Boolean Operators (OR, AND, NOT) – the paragraph approach. Each format has merits and disadvantages. The example given here is a hybrid of the two approaches.

Strategy

1. *covid-19/px or *covid-19 vaccines/px
2. exp psychological phenomena/
3. COVID-19 Vaccines/ or COVID-19/ or COVID-19 Testing/ or COVID-19 Serological Testing/ or SARS-CoV-2/
4. *mental health/ or exp *mental disorders/ or exp *mental processes/ or exp *anxiety disorders/ or exp *"disruptive, impulse control, and conduct disorders"/ or exp *"feeding and eating disorders"/ or exp *mood disorders/ or exp *personality disorders/ or exp *sleep wake disorders/ or exp *substance-related disorders/ or exp *"trauma and stressor related disorders"/ or exp *stress disorders, traumatic/ or hypochondriasis/ or resilience, psychological/ or exp "Feeding and Eating Disorders"/
5. ("Alcohol abus$3" or "alcohol use$2" or Anxiety or Bereavement or Conflict$2 or Compulsion or coping or Cyberchondria or Depression or despair or "disruptive behavior" or Distress or "emotion regulation" or "financial strain" or Hypochondriasis or Isolation or Loneliness or "mental health" or mental or Mood or Obsession or "obsessive-compulsive" or "obsessive compulsive disorder" or overwhelmed or Panic or Posttraumatic or "Post trauma$3" or "prolonged grief" or Psychiatric or "psychiatric disorder" or "psychological well-being" or Psychologic or "psychological impact" or psychoses or psychosis or Ptsd or resilience or resilient or "social isolation" or Stress$3 or "substance use" or "Substance abuse" or Suicide or Suicidal or telepsychiatry or traumatic or violence or worry or "food security" or "community psychology" or fear or "self-harm" or bereavement or "death wish" or "sleep-wake disorder$1" or grief or "poor-sleep" or burnout or trichotillomania or mania$1 or traumatization or coronaphobia or phobia$1 or "impulse control" or "social support" or "moral distress" or "eating disorder$1").ti,kw.
6. (1 and 2) or (3 and (4 or 5))

How to locate references using database specific controlled vocabulary resources together with free-text terms

Background

In May 2023 the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared “an end to COVID-19 as a public emergency” (1). Nevertheless, the pandemic, during its course and afterwards, has had a substantial impact on people’s physical and mental health. This search strategy aims to identify literature that addresses the impact of covid on people’s psychological wellbeing and overall mental health. Constructed for use in APA PsycInfo by the Customer Success Team at Wolters Kluwer Health Learning Research and Practice (WKHLRP), equivalent searches have been similarly constructed for Ovid MEDLINE and Journals@Ovid. Points to note are as follows.

Bibliographic Databases and Controlled Vocabularies
Ovid MEDLINE and APA PyscInfo are both bibliographic databases, also referred to as Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) databases. That is to say, they are highly detailed sources of information about information, the latter in the form of mostly scientific journal articles, but also systematic reviews, controlled trials, conference proceedings etc.

Where possible full-text versions of bibliographic references are made available via included link-out options to full-text repositories, e.g. PMC. A characteristic of bibliographic databases is their use of a controlled vocabulary for both indexing and searching. For APA PsycInfo the controlled vocabulary is provided by the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms® (2) which maintained by the American Psychological Association (APA), is an indispensable aid to detailed and focused searching. Coupled with free-term searching, this bibliographic database offers a reliable means of looking for information on a topic quickly, yet comprehensively.

Search Strategy Formats: Line-by-Line or Paragraph-Based
There are differing schools of thought as to how to build a search strategy. Some prefer a line-by-line approach. Others are more inclined to enter the search terms one after another in an ongoing stream, separating out search terms and database instructions using combinations of brackets (parentheses) and Boolean Operators (OR, AND, NOT) – the paragraph approach. Each format has merits and disadvantages. The example given here is a hybrid of the two approaches.

Strategy

1. COVID-19 Vaccines/ or COVID-19/ or COVID-19 Testing/ or COVID-19 Serological Testing/ or SARS-CoV-2/ or exp coronavirus/
2. *mental health/ or exp *mental disorders/ or exp *anxiety disorders/ or exp *"disruptive, impulse control, and conduct disorders"/ or exp *"feeding and eating disorders"/ or exp *mood disorders/ or exp *personality disorders/ or exp *sleep wake disorders/ or exp *substance-related disorders/ or exp *"trauma and stressor related disorders"/ or exp *stress disorders, traumatic/ or hypochondriasis/ or resilience, psychological/
3. ("Alcohol abus$3" or "alcohol use$2" or Anxiety or Bereavement or Conflict$2 or Compulsion or coping or Cyberchondria or Depression or despair or "disruptive behavior" or Distress or "emotion regulation" or "financial strain" or Hypochondriasis or Isolation or Loneliness or "mental health" or mental or Mood or Obsession or "obsessive-compulsive" or "obsessive compulsive disorder" or overwhelmed or Panic or Posttraumatic or "Post trauma$3" or "prolonged grief" or Psychiatric or "psychiatric disorder" or "psychological well-being" or Psychologic or "psychological impact" or psychoses or psychosis or Ptsd or resilience or resilient or "social isolation" or Stress$3 or "substance use" or "Substance abuse" or Suicide or Suicidal or telepsychiatry or traumatic or violence or worry or "food security" or "community psychology" or fear or "self-harm" or bereavement or "death wish" or "sleep-wake disorder$1" or grief or "poor-sleep" or burnout or trichotillomania or mania$1 or traumatization or coronaphobia or phobia$1 or "impulse control" or "social support" or "moral distress").mp.
4. 1 and (2 or 3)

How to locate references in a full text database where controlled vocabulary resources are not available.

Background

In May 2023 the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared “an end to COVID-19 as a public emergency” (1). Nevertheless, the pandemic, during its course and afterwards, has had a substantial impact on people’s physical and mental health. This search strategy aims to identify literature that addresses the impact of covid on people’s psychological wellbeing and overall mental health. Constructed for use in Journals@Ovid by the Customer Success Team at Wolters Kluwer Health Learning Research and Practice (WKHLRP), equivalent searches have been similarly constructed for Ovid MEDLINE and APA PsycInfo. Points to note are as follows.

Full-Text Databases and Full Text Searching
In contrast to the bibliographic databases Ovid MEDLINE and APA PyscInfo, Journals@Ovid is a full-text database. It too provides a degree of bibliographic data on the articles contained in it, but its strength is that it contains the full text of articles as well as their accompanying images, graphics and tables.

As a resource, Journals@Ovid is a database that aggregates hundreds of scientific, technical and medical journals from over 50 publishers and societies. Given this heterogeneity there is no single controlled vocabulary against which the full text content is indexed. Nevertheless, it is possible to search directly in and across the full text of the articles within the database using the word indexed Full Text field (TX).

Usefully, the Full Text field (TX) is also one of the default fields for the Unqualified Search or Multi-Field (MP) search. This is why the .mp search option has been used in all four search lines and paragraphs (see below) of the search strategy being discussed here.  

Search Strategy Formats: Line-by-Line or Paragraph-Based
There are differing schools of thought as to how to build a search strategy. Some prefer a line-by-line approach. Others are more inclined to enter the search terms one after another in an ongoing stream, separating out search terms and database instructions using combinations of brackets (parentheses) and Boolean Operators (OR, AND, NOT) – the paragraph approach. Each format has merits and disadvantages. The example given here is a hybrid of the two approaches.

Strategy

1. (covid-19 or SARS-CoV-2 or coronavirus).mp and Psycholog$.mp.
2. (mental health or mental disorders or mental processes or anxiety disorders or "disruptive, impulse control, and conduct disorders" or "feeding and eating disorders" or mood disorders or personality disorders or sleep wake disorders or substance-related disorders or "trauma and stressor related disorders" or stress disorders, traumatic or hypochondriasis or resilience, psychological or Eating Disorders).mp
3. ("Alcohol abus$3" or "alcohol use$2" or Anxiety or Bereavement or Conflict$2 or Compulsion or coping or Cyberchondria or Depression or despair or "disruptive behavior" or Distress or "emotion regulation" or "financial strain" or Hypochondriasis or Isolation or Loneliness or "mental health" or mental or Mood or Obsession or "obsessive-compulsive" or "obsessive compulsive disorder" or overwhelmed or Panic or Posttraumatic or "Post trauma$3" or "prolonged grief" or Psychiatric or "psychiatric disorder" or "psychological well-being" or Psychologic or "psychological impact" or psychoses or psychosis or Ptsd or resilience or resilient or "social isolation" or Stress$3 or "substance use" or "Substance abuse" or Suicide or Suicidal or telepsychiatry or traumatic or violence or worry or "food security" or "community psychology" or fear or "self-harm" or bereavement or "death wish" or "sleep-wake disorder$1" or grief or "poor-sleep" or burnout or trichotillomania or mania$1 or traumatization or coronaphobia or phobia$1 or "impulse control" or "social support" or "moral distress" or "eating disorder$1").mp
4. (1 AND (2 or 3)

How to run a simple yet focused search to quickly identify records connecting a drug and a specific side effect.

Background

In busy and demanding healthcare environments, practitioners may often be called upon to obtain up to date information on a specific drug and its possible or even known side effects. The large A&I biomedical databases are able to provide such information. However, given the differences in the way they index the source material, the search strategy needs to be constructed with the database specific indexing methods in mind, in order to obtain the best results.  

The reference below indicates how MEDLINE indexes drugs and chemicals. The search example demonstrates how in 4 lines, users can retrieve specific and authoritative information where Ibrance represents the drug trade name, palbociclib its generic name and neutropenia the known or suspected side effect.  

1. (Ibrance or palbociclib).mp.
2. neutropenia.mp.
3. (adverse effect$ or side effect$).mp.
4. 1 and 2 and 3

The lines of the search can always be supplemented. For example, line #1 could also include the code attributed to the drug during its development. Line #2 could include synonyms for the condition, as well as variations of neutropenia, e.g. febrile neutropenia.  

For recall and teaching purposes the search could also be documented in the form of a MODEL SEARCH,

1. (< DRUG TRADE NAME > or < GENERIC TRADE NAME >).mp.
2. < ADVERSE EVENT >.mp.
3. (adverse effect$ or side effect$).mp.
4. 1 and 2 and 3

The search as listed here is the Ovid MEDLINE focused search for running a simple search to quickly identify records connecting a drug and a specific side effect. For the functionally equivalent search in Embase on Ovid, please see Adverse Drug Reactions: Quick Search – Embase.

Strategy

1. (Ibrance or palbociclib).mp.

2. neutropenia.mp.

3. (adverse effect$ or side effect$).mp.

4. 1 and 2 and 3

How to run a simple yet focused search to quickly identify records connecting a drug and a specific side effect.

Background

In busy and demanding healthcare environments, practitioners may often be called upon to obtain up to date information on a specific drug and its possible or even known side effects. The large A&I biomedical databases are able to provide such information. However, given the differences in the way they index the source material, the search strategy needs to be constructed with the database specific indexing methods in mind, in order to obtain the best results. 

For its part Embase uses extensive and deep indexing, providing targeted access to over 40 million records. The Embase indexing system is based upon the Emtree thesaurus where special focus is placed on the 3 D’s namely, drugs, devices and diseases.

With respect to deep indexing, Emtree’s understanding of “drug terms” is that of any chemical entity. That said, clinical drugs are indexed in greater depth than other drug terms. The indexing of clinical drugs can also be supplemented or modified using drug subheadings. In Embase the subheadings are specific to each of the 3 D’s; diseases, drugs and devices. One of the 5 key subheadings for drugs, is the subheading Adverse Drug Reaction and for diseases Side Effect. See the reference below for more details on how Embase indexes drugs and chemicals.

The search example demonstrates how in 3 lines, users can make good use of Emtree’s very focused and deep indexing, related to clinical drugs to retrieve specific and authoritative information. In the example Ibrance was submitted as the initial entry term. This, Embase maps to palbociclib, its generic name which in turn, as an Emtree term also covers synonyms and variants. Neutropenia, also submitted as an entry term, was mapped to neutropenia, which also being an Emtree term, similarly covers synonyms and variants.   

1. exp palbociclib/ae [Adverse Drug Reaction]
2. exp neutropenia/si [Side Effect]
3. 1 and 2

The lines of the search can always be supplemented. For example, line #1 could also include the key terms in the form of .mp searches. Similarly with line #2 in respect of the side effect condition.

For recall and teaching purposes the search could also be documented in the form of a MODEL SEARCH,

1. exp < DRUG NAME >/ae [Adverse Drug Reaction]
2. exp < ADVERSE EVENT >/si [Side Effect]
3. 1 and 2

The search as listed here is the Embase focused search for running a simple search to quickly identify records connecting a drug and a specific side effect. For the functionally equivalent search in Ovid MEDLINE, please see Adverse Drug Reactions: Quick Search – Ovid MEDLINE.

Strategy

1. exp palbociclib/ae [Adverse Drug Reaction]

2. exp neutropenia/si [Side Effect]

3. 1 and 2

Comparison of similar search strategies between dissimilar databases.

Background

Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) databases are the primary source of information for systematic reviews, be the retrieved information actual systematic reviews themselves, or their constituent units of analysis, e.g. randomized controlled trials, observational studies etc.

A systematic review, irrespective of type, benefits from reviewers being able to consult multiple databases. However, while such databases fit the general label of being Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) database resources, they vary in their scope and coverage, in their editorial policies and processes as well as in how the information may be retrieved from them.

This has the practical consequence that while a search can be designed to generally follow the same sequence of conceptual blocks, the exact formulation of the search terms and syntax needs to be adapted for each database.   

The search discussed here is an Ovid MEDLINE search that was constructed and run to support the production of a qualitative systematic review, the results of which were reported in the paper “Patients’ perspectives on interprofessional collaboration between health care professionals during hospitalization: a qualitative systematic review” and published in the journal JBI Evidence Synthesis (see references below).

The Ovid MEDLINE search was one of six searches, each being constructed separately for the six databases considered by the systematic review. An initial search was constructed and run in 2017 and then updated in 2018. The search considered here is the updated version from 2018.

Strategy

1. Patient Care Team/

2. exp Interprofessional Relations/

3. ((doctor$1 or physician$1) adj1 nurse$1 adj2 (collaboration or communication or cooperation or relation$1 or round$1)).ab,ti,kf.

4. ((interprofessional or inter-professional or interdisciplinary) adj2 (care or collaboration or communication or cooperation or healthcare or management or relation$1 or round$1 or team$1)).ab,ti,kf.

5. (team$1 adj1 (care or healthcare)).ab,ti,kf.

6. teamwork.ab,ti,kf.

7. (((collaboration or communication or cooperation or relation$1) adj2 (provider$ 1 or clinician$1)) not (patient$1 adj2 (provider$1 or clinician$1))).ab,ti,kf.

8. or/1-7

9. exp Patient Satisfaction/

10. Patient Participation/

11. ((patient$1 or inpatient$1 or client$1 or user$1 or wom#n$1) adj3 (participation or perspective$1 or view$1 or viewpoint$1 or perception$1 or satisfaction or experience$1 or attitude$1 or role$1 or preference$1 or expectation$1 or involve$1 or involvement or engagement or dissatisfaction$1)).ab,ti,kf.

12. or/9-11

13. (qualitative or interview_ or findings or focus group_ or themes or mixed method$1).mp. or exp qualitative research/

14. 8 and 12 and 13

15. limit 14 to yr=‘‘1980 -Current’’