Evidence Based Medicine Searching Strategies

Language

MEDLINE uses a controlled vocabulary called Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).

There are MeSH terms to use to search each type of EBM literature. In addtion to MeSH terms, you may also use text word searching. Adding text word searching to the MeSH terms is a way to broaden a search and/or to allow for indexing inconsistencies.

There are several MeSH terms and text words to use to search EBM therapy literature.

Medical Subject Headings. Below are listed some MeSH terms to use when searching for EBM articles dealing with therapy. Look at the scope notes for these terms and become familiar with how they are defined. Remember that to include the narrower terms of a MeSH heading (i.e., Clinical Trials), you must explode the term. Articles are indexed to the most specific level.

Clinical Trials

Clinical Trials, Phase I
Clinical Trials, Phase II
Clinical Trials, Phase III
Clinical Trials, Phase IV Controlled Clinical Trials
Multicenter Studies
Randomized Controlled Trials

Comparative Study

Research

Animal Testing Alternatives
Clinical Protocols
Feasibility Studies
Human Genome Project
Peer Review, Research
Pilot Projects
Reproducibility of Results
Research Design Double-Blind Method
Meta-Analysis
Patient Selection
Random Allocation
Sample Size

Textwords. Below are some textwords and roots of textwords which may prove useful when searching for EBM articles on therapy. The truncation symbol (:) will allow you to retrieve any textword beginning with the typed characters (i.e. Random: will retrieve random, randomized, randomizing, etc.)

Blind:
Mask:
Random:
Placebo:
Efficacy:
Effective: