APA PsycInfo on Ovid – Single versus Group Fields (.mp Searching)

Background

APA PsycInfo describes itself as "(T)he premier abstracting and indexiing database covering the behavioral and social sciences from the authority in psychology". (1) A resource produced and made available by the American Psychological Association (APA), APA PsycInfo, along with Ovid MEDLINE and Embase on Ovid, constitute, in their respective fields, the largest and most comprehensive Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) databases for peer-reviewed scientific information. 

APA PsycInfo on Ovid – Facts and Figures (1)

• A bibliographic database, APA PsycInfo is made up of over 5.7 million database records.
• Within these database records are some 144 million cited references.
• The database records are derived from 2,400 journals.
• Database records are indexed using the APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (R).
• Content includes not only journal articles but also book chapters and dissertations.
• Spanning 600 years of content, the database is updated twice weekly.
• Additional topics related to psychology, also covered range from AI to education, medicine and sports.

Training Session Programme

This Learning Pathway series of training modules draws upon the content and teaching approaches in and behind the learning resource OvidGO! (2). Constructed around a selection of focused searches, the training programme has been designed to achieve the following two objectives,

1. to introduce the database, APA PsycInfo on Ovid, drawing upon where helpful, parallels and comparisons with Ovid MEDLINE,
2. to discuss, demonstrate and practice the key features and functionality of the database APA PsycInfo on Ovid. 

(1). See https://www.apa.org/pubs/databases/psycinfo/index
(2). See https://tools.ovid.com/ovidgo/       

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In this Focused Search the task is to retrieve literature from APA PsycInfo on Ovid that discusses 'fitspiration', and whether or not it has a negative impact on body image. 'Fitspiration', also referred to as 'fitspo', is the term given to information, most usually from internet related sources, i.e. social media posts and websites, that is designed to promote fitness and better health. 

When using the Advanced Search mode in a bibliographic database like APA PsycInfo on Ovid, it is common practice to enter a search term or terms followed by the field or fields you want Ovid to search in. For example, the search expression ((fitspiration or fitspo) and negativ$ and body imag$).ti,ab. (see this Focused Search, line #1) tells Ovid to search for the terms 'fitspiration' or 'fitspo', and combine these with variations of the term 'negative' and 'body image', in the Title (TI) field as well as the Abstract (AB) fields. This kind of search is referred to as a qualified search in the sense that the instruction to the database is explicit, namely “go and look for these specific terms in these specific fields, that I, the user have selected.”

But as noted in a previous Focused Search, databases vary not only in size but also in terms of their “shape”. You may, for instance, be uncertain about the field composition or layout of the database. In such cases Ovid can help out with the multi-purpose or .mp search. This is described as an unqualified search across a default set of fields which are specific to the database being used.

In this case, the example as given above would be entered as ((fitspiration or fitspo) and negativ$ and body imag$).mp. Here Ovid searches for the search terms, truncated or otherwise, in a set of fields specific to the database being used. For APA PsycInfo on Ovid the default set of fields across which Ovid will search are:

title, abstract, heading word, table of contents, key concepts, original title, tests & measures, mesh word

Because the default fields to be covered by an .mp search are automatically pre-determined, .mp based searches lend themselves well to cross database searching. In this sense the .mp search option is a helpful supplement to Ovid’s Basic Search (lines #2 and #3) which is also able to carry search expressions easily across multiple databases.

Practice Suggestions:

1. Using the NOT operator, isolate the difference in the number of documents between line #1 and line #4. Other than Title (TI) and Abstract (AB), list the fields in which the search terms were also highlighted. 
2. in line #7, the character replacement wildcard character '#' was used on the term 'wom#n' to search for 'woman', singular and 'women', plural.  In line #8 the character replacement wildcard character '#' could have been used on the term 'm#n' to search for 'man', singular and 'men', plural but was not. Why do you think this was the case?
3. Use the Change option to run this Focused Search through Ovid MEDLINE. Do all three versions of the search, i.e. the lines using .ti,ab. , the Basic Search version and the  .mp version, run properly? If in Ovid MEDLINE you were to amend line #1 to ((fitspiration or fitspo) and negativ$ and body imag$).ti,ab,kf. and re-run it in APA PsycInfo what happens?

Search Stategy

Copy Strategy Launch Search

Reviewers

Primary: Michael Fanning

Secondary: Charlotte Viken

Review Date: 2025-03-17

Expiry Date: 2025-03-17

Original search produced by:

Ovid Training Team

References:

OvidGO! / Skills Videos / General Introduction
What is a bibliographic database?
What is the structure of a database?
What is Ovid MEDLINE?
What are Boolean Operators?
What are wildcards?
Subject heading searching

Citation:

OvidGO! Portal. Focused Searches: APA PsycInfo on Ovid – Single versus Group Fields (.mp Searching) [Internet]. London (UK): Ovid Training Team (Editors); 2025 [updated 2 March 2024; cited 10 March 2025]. Available from: https://tools.ovid.com/ovidgo/searches/view.php?id=115