A Guide to Searching PubMed (and Other Free Databases) for Health Facilities Design Research.

One of the first steps of conducting an evidence-based design (EBD) project is to search the literature. This will determine whether others have reported findings from their project research, EBD projects, case studies, or postoccupancy evaluations. The search results yield potential evidence that can be considered when designing your project. This methodology column will discuss databases that can be accessed without charge and searched to locate health facilities design research. Use of PubMed will be the primary focus.PubMedPubMed is a database supported by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Institutes of Health (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed). PubMed offers access to more than 23 million citations on biomedical topics from MEDLINE, life science journals, and free online books (currently over 3,000) plus other resources such as genetics databases from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Before you start a search, determine what you need from the search. Are you looking for a specific article, a quick search on a specific topic, or a comprehensive search? [Figure 1] is a screen shot that depicts out how to get started with four different methods to conduct a search.Figure 1.Four ways to search PubMed.[Image omitted: See PDF.]Method 1: Finding a Specific Article, Journal, or Author(s)Searching for a specific article starts by clicking on single citation matcher which provides the form shown in [Figure 2]. [Figure 2] has been completed for the following citation: Stichler, J. F. (2015). Evaluating evidence-based studies and design projects. HERD, 8 , 96-104. When searching this way, it is recommended to start with a few pieces of the citation (journal title, volume, and page number) instead of adding all of the known information. You could also search for a journal title to see all of the articles indexed on that title or an author's name.Figure 2.Single citation matcher search.[Image omitted: See PDF.]An important characteristic of PubMed to note is that it does not search the full text of articles. When searching for concepts, there are two main areas within a record that need to be searched.the title/abstract , which are determined by the author(s) and are searched through key word searching andthe medical subject headings (MeSH ), which are added by the NLM indexers and are searched through MeSH Database. [Figure 3] shows an artificial example of a PubMed citation about evidence-based hospital design. The information added below the line in [Figure 3] are terms added to the record by indexers at NLM.Figure 3.Example of PubMed citation.[Image omitted: See PDF.]Method 2: Key Word Search (Quick Search)A quick search is conducted by typing key words into the search box. [Table 1] shows the development of a concept search aimed at finding articles about evidence-based hospital design. The Search #1 is an example of a typical search. This type of search retrieved many articles that are irrelevant due to the attempt to expand the search by combining the terms in different ways and trying to map to MeSH terms. To see exactly what PubMed searched, scroll down the screen and look for a box labeled "Search details" on the right column. Search #2 shows how adding quotation marks to phrases increases the specificity of the search, reducing retrieval of irrelevant articles. Finally, Search #3 shows adding a synonym to the search to expand the search to ensure that more relevant articles are retrieved.Table 1.Concept Search Examples.TABLENo.Searches (shown below directly as typed)Number of articles retrieved in June 2015Notes#1evidence based hospital design7,206Several irrelevant articles#2"evidence based" AND "hospital design"112Mostly relevant articles#3"evidence based" AND ("hospital design" or "facility design")178Covers more of the relevant articles#4(("Evidence-Based Practice"[Mesh]) AND ("Facility Design and Construction"[Mesh] OR "Hospital Design and Construction"[Mesh])161Highly specific search that was indexed to be about the topics#5(("Evidence-Based Practice"[Mesh] OR "Evidence Based"[all fields]) AND ("Facility Design and Construction"[Mesh] OR "Hospital Design and Construction"[Mesh] or "hospital design"[all fields] or "facility design" [all fields]))245Comprehensive search retrieving any article mentioning the two conceptsNote. …