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Search filters are prepared search strategies for particular topics. They can be copied and pasted into a specific database to aid in searches.
Search filters are often designed to try to retrieve everything relevant to your desired topic. Therefore, it will also retrieve some irrelevant results, too, rather than risk missing something good. So be prepared to sift through the results for the best publications.
Author Searching - Best practice is last name and one or two initials
Truncation does not work for words of 3 letters or fewer.
Truncation is unlimited in the new PubMed of 2020. (In old PubMed, search stopped after 600 results.)
Below is an example of a search hedge to find qualitative studies. Other search hedges for qualitative studies exist. There is not one Right Way to search.
“interviews as topic”[Mesh:noexp] OR “focus groups”[Mesh:noexp] OR narration[Mesh:noexp] OR "qualitative research"[Mesh:noexp] OR “semi-structured”[TIAB] OR semistructured[TIAB] OR unstructured[TIAB] OR structured[TIAB] OR informal[TIAB] OR “in-depth”[TIAB] OR indepth[TIAB] OR “face-to-face”[TIAB] OR guide[TIAB] OR guides[TIAB] AND interview*[TIAB] OR discussion*[TIAB] OR questionnaire*[TIAB] OR “focus group”[TIAB] OR “focus groups”[TIAB] OR qualitative[TIAB] OR ethnograph*[TIAB] OR fieldwork[TIAB] OR “field work”[TIAB] OR “key informant”[TIAB]
Search hedges are standardized search strings designed to comprehensively search on a concept. Other names are search filters, canned searches, clinical queries, or optimal search strategies. They are specific to a database and are not interchangeable to other databases. They are sometimes published and shared.
If you use a published filter for a project, you should cite the published filter.
Below are some short search hedges for the PubMed database. But some can be very long and complex.
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All records in PubMed |
All[sb] |
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NOT (Case Reports[ptyp] OR Comment[sb] OR Editorial[ptyp] OR Letter[ptyp] OR Review[ptyp]) |
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all records about humans |
Humans[Mesh] NOT (Animals[Mesh] NOT Humans[Mesh]) |
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Finds o'brien j, o'brien ja, o'brien jb, o'brien jc jr, etc. |
o'brien j [au] |
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Finds digeorge in the title and/or abstract only |
digeorge[tiab] |
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Turns off the "explode" feature of MeSH |
therapy [sh:noexp] |
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pediatrics |
Infan* OR newborn* OR new-born* OR perinat* OR neonat* OR baby OR baby* OR babies OR toddler* OR minors OR minors* OR boy OR boys OR boyfriend OR boyhood OR girl* OR kid OR kids OR child OR child* OR children* OR schoolchild* OR schoolchild OR school child[tiab] OR school child*[tiab] OR adolescen* OR juvenil* OR youth* OR teen* OR under*age* OR pubescen* OR pediatrics[mh] OR pediatric* OR paediatric* OR peadiatric* OR school[tiab] OR school*[tiab] OR prematur* OR preterm* |
You can search for search filters created by others.
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