!EFSC LibGuides Repository

PubMed is a free resource developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The PubMed database inlcudes over 35 million citations to biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life sciences journals, citations to articles published by NIH funded researchers, and citations to books, including some book chapters. Content dates back to 1946 and is updated 7 days a week.

Most PubMed records are MEDLINE citations. MEDLINE is the National Library of Medicine’s premier bibliographic database containing citations and author abstracts from more than 5,600 biomedical journals published in the United States and in other countries.

PubMed Central (PMC) is a free archive of full text articles from biomedical and life sciences journals. It includes articles from publicly funded research, including NIH, AHRQ, CDC, FDA, NASA, and the VA. A requirement of publicly funded research is to provide full text articles for free to the public.

See the Fact Sheet: MEDLINE, PubMed, and PMC (PubMed Central): How are they different?

This is an excellent tutorial demonstrating how to search for evidence-based practice articles in PubMed.

NOTE: this tutorial does not link to EFSC's PubMed Portal. If you want to practice the exercises in the tutorial, open a separate window for the EFSC PubMed Portal. Using the EFSC PubMed Portal will link you to the free full text of articles in the EFSC Library's online collections.

Learning Objectives for this training course:

• Accurately and precisely describe your clinical question using PICO

• Convert your research question into search terms for PubMed

• Check that medical terms in your search map to Medical Subject Headings

• Use appropriate filters to refine your search results set

• Use Clinical Queries to limit results to clinically relevant literature

• Find full text linked from PubMed

• Identify your library as a source for full text articles

• Find the “My NCBI” link and recognize that as a place to store searches and citations

• Identify your librarian as a source for search assistance

• Find the PubMed Online Training page and specific tutorials relevant for continuing your training

Always use the EFSC portal to PubMed. This special link will let you view full text journal articles available from the EFSC Library.

When viewing the citation details screen, look for this icon to find the article's full text in EFSC's online library collections:   Click on the full text finder icon and, if prompted, log in using your Titan User Name and Password.

Not every article will be available full text in EFSC collections. Articles not available in full text will display a link to Submit an ILL request for this item. Fill out the request form and the Library will try to find a free copy of your article via Interlibrary Loan.

When performing a simple search in PubMed select specific keywords and do not include punctuation OR operators such as AND or OR.

PubMed translates your search terms into both keywords and MESH terms.

• PubMed results are sorted by Best Match but can be resorted by Most Recent.

• Selected results can be saved or emailed.

• Each citation provides a citation and a permalink (under the Share symbol).

When you click on an article title in the PubMed results list, the detailed record will appear. Here you will see:

• Citation information (see the blue boxes)

• PMID: this is the PubMed ID number for this specific article

• DOI: Digital Object Identifier for this article. Include the DOI in your APA citation.

• Abstract: this article has a structured abstract

• Similar articles: find additional articles on your topic

• Full Text Links: look for the EFSC Full Text Finder Icon  . There may also be links to publisher's sites here but EFSC may not subscribe to the full text. Look for links that say FREE. (see the green box)

• Cite: provides a suggested APA citation for the article (see the red box)

•  this shows the permalink for this article (see the red box)

• MESH terms: shows the medical subject headings for this article

Some frequently used limiters, or filters, in PubMed include:

• Publication dates

• Full text (NOTE: using this filter can limit your results too much. You may miss some good citations to articles that can be retrieved in full text via Interlibrary Loan)

There are Additional filters which can be helpful when you get a lot of results include:

• Language

• Nursing journals under Journal (NOTE: using this filter can limit your results too much. You may miss some good articles, so use with caution)

This fast paced video from the U.S. National Library of Medicine shows the variety of free resources available for nursing research. You will only use some of these tools while at EFSC. (time 3:51) Standard YouTube License https://youtu.be/vDeYHRvTfIk

When performing a simple search in PubMed select specific keywords and do not include punctuation OR operators such as AND or OR.

PubMed translates your search terms into both keywords and MESH terms. Look at the Search Details box to see how your search was translated.

This is an excellent tutorial on PubMed tailored to nursing. It contains videos, includes PICO question examples and searches, demonstrates searching for evidence-based practice citations, and shows how to use My NCBI.

NOTE: this tutorial does not link to EFSC's PubMed Portal. If you want to practice the exercises in the tutorial, open a separate window for the EFSC PubMed Portal.

PubMed for Nurses

 My NCBI is a free service within PubMed that allows you to create an account where you can:

• Save searches and records

• Create automatic e-mail alerts

• Manage display preferences and filter options

• Turn on highlighting for search terms

One of the biggest advantages to creating a My NCBI account is the LinkOut feature which allows you to filter search results to citations that are available through EFSC Libraries.

NOTE: You won't see these filters unless you set them up under NCBI Site Preferences.

You only need to set up an account once.

1. Log In to EFSC's PubMed portal with your B Number and PIN (birthdate in MMDDYY format).

2. Click Sign in to NCBI (in the upper right corner)

3. Click Register for a NCBI account

4. Create a case sensitive user name and password

5. Enter an email address

6. Set a security question in case you forget your password

7. Type the security letters as they appear on the screen

8. Click Create Account

You will receive a confirmation email. Be sure to click on the link in the email to confirm your account.

After you log in to My NCBI, it's a good idea to set your site preferences to enhance your PubMed search experience. You may change site preferences as often as you like.

One of the biggest advantages to creating a My NCBI account is the LinkOut feature which allows you to filter search results to citations that are available through EFSC Libraries.

1. Click My NCBI (in the upper right corner)

2. Click NCBI Site Preferences in gray bar

3. Under Common Preferences some helpful settings are:

   • Highlighting (highlights your search terms)

   • Auto Suggest: On (displays suggestions as you type terms)

4. Under PubMed Preferences some helpful settings are:

   • Filters & Icons (see the video tutorial)

     • Under the Popular category some helpful settings are:

       • English

       • Free Full Text

       • Published in the last 5 years

     • Under the LinkOut category, search for eastern florida (see the video tutorial).

       • Select Eastern Florida State College Libraries

       • Be sure to select both the Filter and Link Icon boxes

   • Result Display Settings (see the video tutorial)

     • Default items per page: 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, or 200 results per page

     • Default sort by: Publication Date OR Most Recent can be helpful

5. Explore other Site Preferences as desired.

6. Once all your preferences are set, click My NCBI to start a search in PubMed.

Now when you do a search, you will see your selected Filters on the right side of the screen. You won't see these filters unless you have set your My NCBI Site Preferences accordingly.