Home>Domains-Diagnosis-Search Strategies
Search Strategies for Articles on Diagnosis
Quality Filters
-Quick Filters
-Clinical Queries
To conduct a search:
1. Choose Ovid Medline (Advanced Search) or PubMed
2. Follow the instruction in step 1 below to search for your Disease/Disorder (shown in red on the diagram).
3. Follow the instructions in step 2 below to search for the appropriate Intervention (shown in blue on the diagram)
4. Follow the instructions in step 3 to filter your results for good Quality articles (shown in yellow on the digram)
5. Combine these searches using the Boolean operator "and". As you can see from the diagram, the result will be literature that combines your Disease/Disorder, the appropriate Intervention and a Quality Filter. The desired search results are represented in white on the diagram.
The following are instructions for using OVID Medline:
Step 1. Searching the Disease or Disorder
Enter terms best describing the disease or disorder.
Possible subheadings (italic indicates most frequently used--for broadest coverage, select "all subheadings")
Diagnosis (DI)
Analysis (AN)
Blood (BL)
Cerebrospinal Fluid (CF)
Pathology (PA)
Radiography (RA)
Radionuclide Imaging (RI)
Ultrasonics (US)
Urine (UR)
Step 2. Searching for the Intervention
Enter terms best describing the intervention.
Possible subheadings (italic indicates most frequently used--for broadest coverage, select "all subheadings")
Diagnostic use (DU)
Analysis (AN)
Blood (BL)
Cerebrospinal Fluid (CF)
Urine (UR)
Step 3. Combine Previous Searches with a Quality Filter
Combine the first two search statements, using the boolean operator "and" and combine the final subject statement with the quick filter (hedge) below. You may also wish to filter your results to quality articles by using the Clinical Queries option in the additional limits section of Medline.
1. Quick Filter for Diagnosis Articles
As a quick filter for good quality articles on Diagnosis, combine your subject search with the appropriate search strategy (depending on whether you are searching Ovid Medline or PubMed).
Ovid Medline:
exp "sensitivity and specificity"/ or exp diagnostic errors/ or predictive value$.tw.
PubMed:
"sensitivity and specificity" [mh] OR diagnostic errors [mh] OR predictive value* [word]
Ovid Medline:
Found within the Additional Limits section, this specialized search function provides fast access to reliable clinical studies via 8 categories that can be added to a query.
These methodology filters allow searchers to quickly locate literature on:
therapy
diagnosis
etiology
prognosis
clinical prediction guides
qualitative studies
economics/costs
reviews
Each category further utilizes an emphasis category (or search hedge):
Sensitivity |
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Specificity |
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Optimized
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Pubmed:
Found under Clinical Queries in the left hand menu.
This search finds citations that correspond to 5 specific clinical study categories:
etiology
diagnosis
therapy
prognosis
clinical prediction guides
The search may be either broad and sensitive or narrow and specific. Please see PubMed's filter table for more details.