UX Caucus Database Tips

Many thanks to Marijane White for this week's post!  Introducing the Pairwise PubMed Search Generator! The Pairwise PubMed Search Generator is a tool designed to streamline the creation of complex PubMed search strings. By using two lists of input terms, you can quickly generate search queries that can either be copied to your clipboard or launched directly in PubMed with a single click. This tool can save you thousands of keystrokes and help prevent errors in intricate search constructions.   Continue reading to learn more about PubMed’s pairwise search functionality, a brief overview of pairwise combinatorics, and of course, the tool itself. PubMed’s proximity search functionality The National Library of Medicine announced the addition of long-awaited proximity search capability to PubMed in the fall of 2022 . Initially only available in the Title and Title/Abstract fields, it was later made available for the Affiliation field as well, where it also limits the search to i...

Written by Hilary Kraus and Zahra Premji Why is proximity searching valuable? In systematic searching, there is an inherent tension between sensitivity and precision. According to the Cochrane Handbook, "Searches for systematic reviews aim to be as extensive as possible in order to ensure that as many of the relevant studies as possible are included in the review. It is, however, necessary to strike a balance between striving for comprehensiveness and maintaining relevance when developing a search strategy." ( Chapter 4, Section 4.4.3: Sensitivity versus precision ) One strategy for achieving this balance is the use of proximity operators. As explained in the Cochrane Handbook's Technical Supplement to Chapter 4, "Use of proximity operators helps to ensure that searches are more sensitive than would be the case with direct adjacency or phrase searching, and can also facilitate ease of searching where there are multiple possible variations of a phrase which would othe...

This tip was submitted by Carrie Price (Towson University) Do you want to test your search for key article inclusion? Perhaps the review team supplied you with a list of key articles during the reference interview. Or, maybe you did some searching together and identified relevant articles. Typically, these key articles are articles that should appear in the search, and can be a useful building block for term harvesting.  Once the key articles have been identified, grab the PubMed ID number (PMID) from the item record and paste them into a document. For an example, I'll use a set of articles on pulmonary rehabilitation in cystic fibrosis patients. I've chosen five. Give each PMID a field tag of [uid], "unique identifier." 33618051 [uid] OR 30827470 [uid] OR 29045949 [uid] OR 27320420 [uid] OR 26522923 [uid] Run them to make sure you get the correct results. It's really easy to miss part of a PMID! Now, keep this key article set in your search documentation while...