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PubMed search
Finding the Evidence
Getting Started with your research
Using PICO to frame your research topic : the PICO model can help you identify the key components in your research topic and for a searchable question
P - Patient or Population or Problem/Disease
Who or what is the question about? This may include the primary problem, disease, or circumstances.
I - Intervention, Exposure or Prognostic Factor
What main intervention/treatment are you considering? What factor may influence the prognosis of the patient? What was the patient exposed to?
C - Comparison(s) or Control (optional)
What alternative intervention are you considering, if any? For example, you might be comparing the efficacy of two medications or the accuracy of two diagnostic tests. Your clinical question does not have to always have a specific comparison.
O - Outcome(s)
What are you trying to accomplish or measure? What are you trying to do for the patient or problem?
Finding the evidence
- Primary sources, such as PubMed, are the best place to start to find original studies (evidence) to answer your question
- Secondary sources, such as review articles or Micromedex, offer supporting or background information that can either answer your question or further support your clinical question
- PubMedSearches MEDLINE, which is the primary source of journal articles for the health sciences (fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, public health, health care systems, and basic sciences). Coverage is from the 1940s to the present. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
- Ovid MEDLINESearches MEDLINE, which is the primary source of journal articles for the health sciences (fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, public health, health care systems, and basic sciences). Ovid MEDLINE is optimized for advanced literature searches. Coverage is from the 1940s to the present.
- ScopusSearch for information from scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Covers the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
Other Sources to Consider
- Dentistry & Oral Sciences SourceDatabase indexes and abstracts journals, magazines, books and monographs dealing with all aspects of dental and oral sciences. Full text is included for many titles and links out to other databases are provided.
- Embase / Embase ClassicEmbase is a biomedical and pharmacological database covering journal articles, conference proceedings, and gray literature. It is strong in its coverage of pharmaceutical research and international and non-English content. Covers 1947 to present.
- APA PsycInfoFind articles in thousands of psychology journals, from 1806 to current. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
- Web of ScienceA comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of journal article citations. Subjects generally covered are within science and technology, arts and humanities, and social sciences. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
Organizing Your Citations
As you search the journal literature online, you will need to collect/organize your references. The easiest way to do this is to use a citation manager. Benefits to using these are:
- Stores citation information online
- Creates bibliography section
- Saves time
EndNote is a client-based citation manager that you can purchase with an academic discount from the University Bookstore.
Learn more about EndNote Desktop including how to connect EndNote to FindIt so you can import PDFs from the Libraries' collections.
Zotero is a free citation manager that works with MS Word and Google Docs. Create an account, download the desktop application and learn more with Zotero guides and tutorials.