Searching and retrieving articles from Medline

Log into Flinders Library and click "Databases"

Enter the word "MEDLINE" and choose that option from the dropdown list (or hit enter)

Type the word "Chocolate" into the field and click "Search", this will launch a new window

This is where you can map to Subject Headings if you wish to. You can also click the information icon and this will give you additional information about the term.

You can see there are some synonyms listed, we can use these to help improve our search.

Click the back button in your browser to return you to the Subject Headings screen

Click CONTINUE to accept that you are mapping to the subject heading

Click as many subheadings as you feel are relevant, for this example we are not choosing any

Now enter the term "Cacao" and click "Search"

Once again click on the information icon to get additional context.

We have discovered a few more synonyms, we will use them shortly. Click the back button on your browser to exit this screen.

Click CONTINUE to accept the word Cacao as a Subject Heading

Choose any subheadings you feel are relevant and click CONTINUE.

In the empty field type "(chocolate\* OR cocoa OR cacao OR theobroma OR txid3640 OR txid3641).tw,kf"\
tw stands for text word: this field searches for words in the title, abstract and other text fields\
kf stands for keyword heading: this field searches for specific keywords or headings assigned to the records\
Click SEARCH

Click the checkboxes as shown and then combine using the boolean operator OR, this tells the database to search for any records that use the subject heading 'chocolate' or the subject heading 'cacao' or the individual terms.

Type 'Hypertension' into the open field and click "Search"

Choose to explode this subject heading. In Medline, the "explode" function allows you to include more specific terms related to a particular subject heading in your search. When you "explode" a subject heading, the search will not only include articles indexed under that main heading but also those indexed under more specific subheadings.

For example, if you search for the subject heading "Heart Diseases" and choose to "explode" it, your search will also include articles indexed under more specific terms like "Myocardial Infarction," "Heart Failure," and other related terms.

This function helps you capture a broader range of articles related to your topic of interest without having to manually add each specific term to your search query.

Choose any subheadings and then click CONTINUE.

Type Blood Pressure into the open field and click "Search"

Click CONTINUE to accept the word Blood Pressurfe as a Subject Heading

Choose any subheadings and then click CONTINUE

Type "(hypertension OR (pressure\* adj2 (blood OR diastolic OR pulse OR systolic))).tw,kf" and click "Search"\
Truncations allow you to search for multiple permutations of the same root word, for example pressure\* would find terms such as pressures and pressured\
The adj2 tells the database that you are only interested in the word pressure if it is within two words of the terms blood or diastolic or pulse or systolic

As you add more lines to the search it will start to condense the view and hide earlier lines, click "Expand" to show the full search history

Click the checkboxes as shown and then combine using the boolean operator OR, this tells the database to search for any records that use the subject heading 'hypertension' or the subject heading 'blood pressure' or the individual terms

Now that we have combined our terms for the exposure (chocolate) and our terms for the outcome (blood pressure) we can combine those with the boolean operator AND so that the database searches for articles related to chocolate and blood pressure

Our final search yielded 479 articles, scroll down to the results

Select the option to display 100 results per page

Click "All", this will highlight all 479 results

A sidebar will appear where you can choose some options. You want to choose EndNote from the Format dropdown box, and you want to choose the "Citation, Abstract" option in the Fields dropdown box.

Citation
Citation, Abstract
Citation, Abstract, Subject Headings
Complete Reference

Move the downloaded file to a folder ready to import into Endnote or Covidence. Because the download has quite a generic name at this stage I like to rename the file with something more meaningful, e.g. Medline 479. This clearly indicates that file was downloaded from Medline and contains 479 citations.

Searching and Exporting MEDLINE Database Citations

Searching and retrieving articles from Medline