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Searching is an iterative process. The first basic search you do on a topic will rarely retrieve all of the relevant literature. In both patient care and research, it is important to first gather all the relevant literature, and then select the best evidence that is available.
A thorough PubMed search must identify the words that are likely to be in the title, abstract or MeSH terms of articles on the topic.
You can start to evaluate your search and identify new search words by looking closely at the results of your initial basic search.
First you need to see more information than is provided in the default Summary display.
Use the drop down options to change the Display from Summary to Citation.
In citation display you can see both the full abstract and the MeSH (Medical Subject Heading) Terms. MeSH Terms are tags added to the PubMed record by subject specialist indexers who review each article. Using MeSH Terms can help you locate more articles on your topic.
Browse through your results in Citation Display. Look for words related to your topic that you did not use in your search. These words can come from anywhere in the PubMed record, but a directly related MeSH term can be the most useful addition.
MeSH (Medical Subject Heading) Terms are listed after the abstract in Citation display.
Mouth Protectors is often found in the MeSH Terms of the results from the search basketball AND mouthguards.
Use the following format to add these words to your search:
basketball AND (mouthguards OR mouth protectors)
- basketball AND mouthguards finds 24 articles
- basketball AND (mouthguards OR mouth protectors) finds 38 articles
Important note: Always put parentheses around words that you are combining with OR.
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