Finding Medical Journal Articles in PubMed
PubMed MEDLINE is a free, online database of more than 17 million medical journal articles from the 1950s to the present. It is run by the US National Library of Medicine. Point your browser to the PubMed site to get started.
Answers to the following questions can help you locate and evaluate medical journal articles in PubMed.
1. When should I search PubMed?
PubMed is an index to the biomedical literature, and it's not very easy to search effectively. If you are comfortable with technical medical language and need the most recent articles, particularly on very specific clinical trials information or from smaller journals, this could be a good database to use. PubMed does not have any full-text articles - you will have to go outside the database to get them (see questions 5 and 6 below). There are other databases that you may have access to as well. One good option is Health Source: Consumer Edition. North Carolina residents can use Health Source via the NC LIVE system from the State Library of North Carolina.
2. How do I do a quick search?
At first glance, the search box for PubMed is very much like searching any internet search engine. Type the keywords that describe your search into the search box at the top of the page. Remember that PubMed has more than 17 million articles - so you'll want to use specific words for all aspects of the question. A search for "diabetes" will return more than 300,000 articles, but a search for "diabetes diet therapy insulin" returns just over 6,000. Boolean searching is supported by PubMed; the default is to connect all terms with "AND."
3. How can I narrow my search?
Add all appropriate keywords to your search. If you want to narrow your search by the kind of article, click the "Limits" tab. Here you can tell PubMed that you only want to see articles about humans, men or women, in English, or for a specific age group. You can ask for articles available for free or those that can be purchased in full-text online. You can also limit to a type of study - like clinical trials - or to review articles. For instance, limiting our search in #1 to "Full text only, humans, English, Reviews, and Adolescents 13-18" finds only 39 articles, a good number to browse through.
4. How are my results organized?
PubMed lists articles with the most recent article first and the oldest article last. You may have to look through much of the list before you see the best article for you. PubMed shows 20 articles at a time, in the Summary Display view. This view shows only the citation information for the article. To see abstracts, change the "Display" drop-down menu to either "Abstract" or "AbstractPlus." To see more articles on your screen at once, change the "View" drop-down menu to 20, 50, 100, or 500.
5. How can I get free articles?
Some PubMed articles are available to anyone in the world for free online. These will be marked in the Summary display with an icon of a sheet of paper that has a green and/or orange line at the top. Click the title of the article to see more information, including a button on the right side of the screen above the "Related Articles" list. Click the button that says "FREE" to open a new window with the free article. You can limit your results to free articles by checking the "Links to free full text" box in the Limits tab.
6. How can I get other articles?
There are two ways to get articles that are not available for free online. You can use the National Library of Medicine's Loansome Doc program to request articles from a local medical library. Check the box next to any articles that you would like to order, then select "Order" from the "Send To" drop-down box. You will be sent to the Loansome Doc login screen - anyone can register. This service requires a small fee and articles come within a few days. Many articles are available online for purchase directly from the publisher. To see ordering information, open the AbstractPlus display using the button to the right of your screen, above the "Related Articles" list. The publisher may charge quite a bit more per article than Loansome Doc, but you will get the article immediately.
7. What are "Related Records"?
To the right of each article's listing there is a link to "Related Records." This link will open up a new list of articles that are similar to the one with which you started. PubMed tries to match words in the title, abstract, and other fields to return other articles that are similar. If you have one good article but are struggling to find others, the Related Records can be a big help.
8. How can I save articles temporarily?
PubMed has a "Clipboard" that can hold articles for a short period of time while you are searching. This is not a permanent storage option, but it is handy if you are doing several searches in one day. Next to each article's listing there is a small box. Check the boxes next to any articles that you would like to keep. In the "Send To" drop-down box, click "Clipboard." You should see a pink bar above your searches that tells you how many articles were added to your Clipboard. You can see your Clipboard articles by clicking the Clipboard tab just below the search box.
9. How can I email, save, or print articles?
Once you're done searching, you can easily email, save, or print articles that you placed on your Clipboard. Go to the Clipboard tab. From the "Send To" drop-down box, select "E-mail", "File" (to save to a text file), or "Printer." The E-mail option will ask you a few additional questions, but the File and Printer options will save/print your articles in whatever Display you are currently using. You can also do this on an article-by-article basis from the Abstract or AbstractPlus displays.
10. How can I get more help?
The State Library of North Carolina (SLNC) sponsors online and in-room workshops on PubMed and other NC LIVE health and medical resources. A current schedule of classes is available from the SLNC. The National Library of Medicine has an in-depth tutorial as well as several short, targeted guides for PubMed.
11. Would you like to print this information?
Use the print feature in your browser to obtain a numbered list of hyperlinks that correspond to the hyperlinked text.
Page authored by K. T. Vaughan, Health Sciences Library at UNC-Chapel Hill.