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PubMed Database Guide: Home

Access Database

Coverage: 1946 to present

PubMed is a free resource that is developed and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

PubMed citations come from:

  1. MEDLINE indexed journals
  2. Journals or manuscripts deposited in PMC (PubMedCentral)
  3. NCBI Bookshelf

PubMed Handout

Search Tips

Basic Search Tips

  • For author searches, enter the name using either the "lastname initials" format (e.g., "smith ja").
  • Do not include punctuation.

Advanced Searching

  • Identify the appropriate MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms for your topic or research question before conducting an advanced search.
  • Use your search history to combine searches using a Boolean operator (AND, OR, or NOT).
  • The Advanced Search Builder allows you to search specific fields, such as "Title", "Title/Abstract" or "Publication Title".
  • Use the asterisk (*) to truncate a word/phrase to locate all passible words/phrases with the initial letters. Use with caution on terms with few letters. For example, diet* not only retrieves diet, diets and dietary but also all words beginning with diethyl.

Clinical Queries

The Clinical Queries search interface finds citations in the areas of:

  • Clinical Study Categories: citations corresponding to a specific clinical study category
  • Systematic Reviews: systematic reviews, meta-analyses, reviews of clinical trials, evidence-based medicine, consensus development conferences, and guidelines