Reason #6000 that I hate the PubMed sidebar

OK, what on earth has happened to the Languages filter in the PubMed sidebar? Over the last week or so, it is no longer one of the default filters - instead you have to select it from the Show additional filters list. Like I have that kind of time!

I think this ranks even higher than my previous complaint about each click on the sidebar corresponding to a single line in the history. This is annoying because if you have to select a whole bunch of publication types, each one takes up a whole line in the search history, and if you're doing a long search, if you get beyond 100 lines in your search history, the first search lines start disappearing. So each line in the history is precious!

However, there is a fairly easy fix for that - just make your own copy-and-paste search strategies for PubMed. Here are some of mine:

Reviews & Guidelines

Review[ptyp] OR systematic[sb] OR Guideline[ptyp]

Guidelines

Guideline[ptyp] OR "Consensus Development Conference"[ptyp]

All types of studies including case reports:

"Study Characteristics"[ptyp]

Trials and Studies – no case reports

"Clinical Trial"[ptyp] OR "Comparative Study"[ptyp] OR "Evaluation Studies"[ptyp] OR "Meta-Analysis"[ptyp] OR "Twin Study"[ptyp] OR "Validation Studies"[ptyp]

It's annoying to have to copy and paste in the canned strategies, yes. But the thing that makes the Languages filter problem so much worse is that it's really a no-brainer. Did someone click the wrong button, or what?

Nonalcoholic beer

"near beer"[all fields] OR "non alcoholic beer"[all fields] OR "nonalcoholic beer"[all fields] OR "no alcohol beer"[all fields] OR "low alcohol beer"[all fields]

Rehabilitation of Speech and Language Disorders

Came across a weird one today! There's a MeSH called Rehabilitation of Speech and Language Disorders that I came across in the Mesh Database:

It's been around since 1998, so for quite a while. Looks like it could be really useful for questions from Speech Language Pathologists.

However, when I typed it into Ovid, with quotes around the phrase because of the "and", it doesn't map to the MeSH term!

You can see the phrase I typed in at the bottom of the screenshot. I tried it three times so I'm pretty sure I didn't make a typo.

Yet, if I search for the broader term, Rehabilitation, and then select the term Rehabilitation of Speech and Language Disorders from the tree, it is available.

I wonder if the failure to map is due to the fact that no article has been given this particular MeSH. Strange, eh? There are lots of results if you explode this MeSH, but not a single article has ever been labelled with this particular MeSH.

When a healthcare professional says natural history...

When a healthcare professional says the words "natural history", they don't mean the textbook definition. Usually Natural History refers to a field of study which scientists pursued back in the 1800s, exploring the natural world. Eventually this became biology and geology.

However, when a healthcare professional refers to the natural history of a disease, they mean what the disease looks like over time, especially if untreated.

If you're really lucky, you can search "natural history"[all fields] and combine it with the MeSH best describing your disease. You might get one or two results.

If you search "Natural History"[Mesh], you'll get the official definition, which is of no use whatsoever.

You can try "Prognosis"[Mesh], which will almost certainly give results when combined with the MeSH for your disease. However, since "Treatment Outcome"[MeSH] is a narrower term of "Prognosis"[Mesh], you may wish not to explode: "Prognosis"[Mesh:NoExp].

The best MeSH for this concept is "Disease Progression"[Mesh], a very useful-sounding MeSH that one can only find by stumbling across it by accident. Again, if you're lucky, combining this MeSH with your disease MeSH will produce a couple of results. However, "Disease Progression" is one of what I call the "Weird MeSH" - that is, highly useful but often overlooked by indexers and searchers alike.

In some cases, "Watchful Waiting"[Mesh] OR "Conservative Treatment"[Mesh] can be useful. Conservative Treatment was added as a MeSH in 2017, and will likely be a "Weird MeSH", so keywording can also be useful: conservative*[tiab] OR nonsurg*[tiab] OR non-surg*[tiab] OR nonoperati*[tiab] OR non-operati*[tiab]

Sometimes "Survival Rate"[Mesh] OR "Disease-Free Survival"[Mesh] are useful too.

In PubMed, the following keywords may be useful:
prognosis[tiab] OR outcome*[tiab] OR "natural history"[tiab] OR "disease progression"[tiab] OR "disease course"[tiab] OR "disease evolution"[tiab] OR "disease trajectory"[tiab] OR "clinical progression"[tiab] OR "clinical course"[tiab] OR  "clinical evolution"[tiab] OR "clinical trajectory"[tiab] OR "natural progression"[tiab] OR "natural course"[tiab] OR "natural evolution"[tiab] OR "course trajectory"[tiab] OR "benign neglect"[tiab]

If all else fails, you can try a full text search where available.

Medline EBSCO:

TX "natural history" AND MH "Disease Name+"
TX disease N3 progress* AND MH "Disease Name+"
TX clinical progress* AND MH "Disease Name+"
TX natural course AND MH "Disease Name+"
TX natural evolution AND MH "Disease Name+"
TX course trajector* AND MH "Disease Name+"

Google scholar:

"disease name" "natural history"

EMBASE:

disease course/ or exp deterioration/ or exp disease clearance/ or exp disease duration/ or exp disease exacerbation/ or exp general condition deterioration/ or exp general condition improvement/ or exp illness trajectory/ or exp prognosis/ or exp recurrent disease/ or exp reinfection/ or exp relapse/ or exp remission/ or exp survival/

if it's a cancer thing:
exp cancer growth/ or exp cancer inhibition/ or exp cancer recurrence/ or exp cancer regression/ or exp leukemia relapse/ or exp leukemia remission/ or exp metastasis inhibition/ or exp tumor growth/ or exp tumor recurrence/ or exp tumor regression/

 PsycInfo:

 DE "Disease Course" OR DE "Prognosis"

Keywords for a title and abstract search:
prognosis OR outcome* OR natural history OR disease course OR clinical progression OR clinical course OR clinical evolution OR clinical trajectory OR natural progression OR natural course OR natural evolution OR course trajectory OR benign neglect
disease N3 progress*
disease N3 evolution*
disease N3 trajectory

Entry term is "course of illness"
Narrower term of "Disease Course" is Metastasis.

Chronic Pain finally gets its own MeSH

The wait is over! There is now a MeSH for Chronic Pain.

Of course, it's only been applied to articles added after the MeSH term was created (sometime in 2012), but at least in future articles on this topic will receive proper indexing.

And there was much rejoicing...

New search strategy for Chronic Pain in Medline:

"Chronic Pain"[Mesh]
OR
"Pain"[Mesh] AND chronic[all fields]

Canada

Searching for Canadian information with PubMed:

"Canada"[Mesh] OR canad*[all fields] OR canada[pl] OR canada[gr]

With Ovid Medline:

exp Canada / OR canad*.mp. OR canad*.cp. OR canad*.in.

With Ebsco Medline:

MH "Canada+" OR ZT "canada" OR ZF canad* OR TI canad* OR AB canad*

With Ebsco Cinahl:
MH "Canada+" OR ZF canad* OR ZB canad* OR TI canad* OR AB canad*

Emergency Department

Searching for Emergency-related topics in Medline is particularly tricky.

Available MeSH are:

Emergency Service, Hospital
This is what's generally known as the ER or ED in North America, or A&E in the UK. Use if the patron refers to any of those, or "in the Emergency setting".

Emergency Medical Services
Exploding this term will includes the above MeSH as a narrower term, but also includes other MeSH such as "Emergency Service, Psychiatric", "Ambulance", and "Triage". Especially useful if the patron refers to the pre-hospital setting, paramedics, or response in the field.

Emergency Nursing
This doesn't appear as a narrower term of either of the above, and therefore must be included separately if wanted. Usually of use in any questions related to the ER/ED, unless specifically interested in another profession.

Emergency Treatment
This also does not appear as a narrower term of any of the above, and therefore must be included separately if wanted. Used for the actual treatments such as the heimlich manoeuver, and applies to all settings, including interventions by bystanders as well as health professionals.

Emergency Medicine
Although this is supposed to be used to refer to the specialty rather than practical or clinical articles, some clinical articles are labelled Emergency Medicine/methods. Use if not getting many results with the above.

Emergencies
Use is extremely varied. It is sometimes used in conjunction with one or more of the above, but other times it appears without any of the above Emergency-related MeSH when one or more of the above are applicable. However, keyword searching may be more effective if only a subset of the above are needed.

Keywords to expand your search (use Ovid for phrase/truncation combos and proximity)
emergency room*
emergency department*
accident adj2 emergency
emergency setting*
prehospital
pre hospital
paramedic*
emergency nurs*
emergenc*

In CINAHL:
 
MH "Emergency Care+" OR MH "Emergency Medical Services+" OR MH "Emergency Service+" OR MH "Emergencies+" OR MH "Emergency Nursing+" OR MH "Emergency Medicine+" OR MH "Emergency Nurse Practitioners+"

keywords:
emergency room* OR emergency department OR accident w2 emergency OR emergency setting* OR prehospital OR pre hospital OR paramedic* OR emergency nurs* OR emergenc*

In EMBASE:

exp emergency ward/ OR exp emergency/ OR exp emergency health service/ OR exp emergency treatment/ OR exp emergency patient/ OR exp emergency surgery/ OR exp emergency medicine/ OR exp emergency physician/ OR exp emergency nursing/

In PsycInfo:

DE "Emergency Services"

Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy in Medline:

exp Occupational Therapy/ OR occupational therap*.mp.

Occupational therapy in CINAHL:

MH "Occupational Therapy+" OR MH "Occupational Therapy Assessment" OR MH "Occupational Therapy Practice, Evidence-Based" OR MH "Occupational Therapy Practice, Research-Based" OR MH "Research, Occupational Therapy" OR MH "Occupational Therapy Practice" OR MH "Occupational Therapy Service" OR MH "Occupational Therapists"

Treatment resistance

A search in Medline for treatments when first-line treatment fails:

exp Drug Resistance/ OR exp Treatment Failure/ OR resistan*.mp. OR refractor*.mp. OR intractab*.mp. OR nonrespon*.mp. OR non respon*.mp. OR persisten*.mp.

PsycInfo has:
DE "Treatment Resistant Disorders"
and you can do:
TI ( resistan* OR refractor* OR intractab* OR nonrespon* OR non-respon* OR persisten* ) OR AB ( resistan* OR refractor* OR intractab* OR nonrespon* OR non-respon* OR persisten* )

EMBASE has:
drug resistance/ or multidrug resistance/ or exp treatment failure/

and also, /dr [Drug Resistance] is a subheading, so check your EMTREE terms to see if they provide it, eg. exp posttraumatic stress disorder/dr [Drug Resistance]

Energy Conservation (Fatigue Prevention)

Someone was asking about Energy Conservation with regard to a particular disease. By these words, she meant thinks like resting between physical activities, but of course the MeSH came out slightly different.

If you type energy conservation into the MeSH database, you will get Conservation of Energy Resources, referring to turning out the lights as you exit, shutting off a car rather than idling, etc... Interesting, but not the same topic!

It turns out that there are two MeSH available for what I was really wanting to search:
"Fatigue/prevention and control"[Mesh] OR "Energy Metabolism"[Mesh]

The same phenomenon occurs in CINAHL:
MH "Energy Conservation+" will bring up articles on turning out the lights.

The search you want is:
MH "Fatigue/PC+" OR MH "Energy Metabolism+" OR MH "Energy Conservation, Metabolic+"

Finding Advanced Search in New Google Scholar

Wondering where "Advanced Search" is on the new Google Scholar interface? It took me forever to find, but it is there! Click on the tiny arrowhead in the right-hand corner of the search field, and you'll have the option to click on Advanced Search. Whew! Glad it's not gone altogether.

No luck so far on creating a bookmark that goes directly to the new Advanced Search options - if I find a way to do that, I'll post again.

Low CO2

If someone asks for low CO2 or low PaCO2, the Mesh term to use is Hypocapnia (a deficiency of CO2 in arterial blood).

There also exists a corresponding term Hypercapnia, for an overabundance of CO2 in arterial blood. You probably wouldn't be using it in the same question, but it exists.

End-tidal CO2

If someone wants information about "End-tidal CO2", what MeSH should you use?

You will get some results with Carbon Dioxide, but the best MeSH is Capnography. Capnography is a Respiratory Function Test which measures the amount of CO2 in the air that the patient breathes out.

These two terms are also available in CINAHL.

Vaccines and Immunization

Vaccines and immunization

In Ovid Medline:

exp Vaccines/ OR exp Vaccination/ OR exp Immunization/

In EBSCO CINAHL:

MH "Vaccines+" OR MH "Immunization+"

In Ovid EMBASE:

exp vaccine/ OR exp vaccination/ OR exp immunization/

Tube Feeding

Medline:

exp Intubation, Gastrointestinal/

CINAHL:
MH "Intubation, Gastrointestinal+" OR MH "Feeding Tubes+"

EMBASE:
exp enteric feeding/ OR exp nasogastric tube/ OR exp tube feeding/ OR exp digestive tract intubation/