Pre-hospital Emergency Care: Advanced searching

In order to answer a research question or topic, you will need to search subject-specific databases to find relevant peer-reviewed articles. 

Click on the Subject Databases tab to see the range of databases we have access to.

To search these databases effectively you may want to consider the following:

• keywords (main topic words)
• synonyms (alternative words)
• phrase searching
• truncation
• Boolean operators (AND/OR) 
• subject headings

For more information on any of the techniques discussed on this page, please see Database Search Tips. 

For information relating to exporting results to EndNote, please see the Systematic Review guide.

Below you will be able to watch videos demonstrating advanced searching on CINAHL and Cochrane Library.

There are videos also on how you can save your search.

Please note: the way you perform an advanced search on Medline is the same as CINAHL. 

Some databases also allow you to search what are called Subject Headings. 

A good way to explain Subject Headings is to think of them as tags or labels. It has been somebody's job to read the articles added to the database and to apply these tags to inform the user/researcher what the article is about, e.g. the context of the article. Two of the main health databases the library subscribes to which have such subject headings are CINAHL and Medline. On CINAHL they are called CINAHL Headings and on Medline they are called MESH Headings.

An example will better explain how searching such Subject Headings can be valuable. Imagine you are looking for literature on the condition of stroke. By searching on the word stroke as a keyword, results could be picked up which had nothing to do with the condition e.g. golf stroke, tennis stroke, stroke a dog; whereas if there was a subject heading for the condition of stroke such results would not be picked up.