Tutorials A-Z

PubMed is a government website that allows users to search for biomedical and health-related scholarly literature. If you are looking for medical information from any disciplinary perspective, PubMed is a good place to start.

PubMed is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The majority of content in PubMed comes from two sources:

1. PubMed Central (PMC), a free full-text database of biomedical, health sciences, and life sciences scholarly journal literature.
2. MEDLINE, the premier bibliographic database created and maintained by the NLM. Note: MEDLINE does not offer free full text; search MEDLINE using CCC Library's EBSCO interface to request free article full text articles through interlibrary loan (ILL).

To help you identify the most effective search terms, PubMed offers a searchable medical thesaurus called the MeSH Database (Medical Subject Headings). Subject Headings are the official and agreed-upon terms that a given database will use to describe the items that are in it. Each database uses its own vocabulary terms to describe its contents; MeSH is unique to PubMed.

Use natural language to search for Subject Headings in MeSH; jot them down; build your search in PubMed later.

Or, you can build a PubMed search directly from MeSH:

1. Run a search in the MeSH Database.
2. Select terms using the check boxes.
3. "Add to search builder" in the PubMed search builder tool.
4. Continue searching for terms and adding them to the PubMed search builder using the "Add to search builder."
5. When you are finished, select "Search PubMed."

Filters help you narrow your search results to better fit your information needs. These filters are located on the PubMed search results page. Filters of note:

1. Article Type
   Limit your search results to higher levels of evidence under Article Type. The list shown on the results page is abbreviated. For additional article types, select the "Additional Filters" link.
   
    
2. Results by Year and Publication Date
   Limit your search results to material published more recently. There are two options for limiting by date.
   

There are more filters that may be relevant to your needs; take time to review them.

PubMed search results contain citation information (e.g., title, journal, publication date) and abstracts of articles and books. PubMed does not include the full text of articles but it may link you to other sources that do, such as PubMed Central (PMC) or the publisher's website.

You can access the free full text of articles in these ways:

1. Free full text filter
   • On your PubMed search results page, select the "Free full text" check box 
     
      
2. PubMed Central (PMC)
   • Open an article's citation record by selecting its title. When full text is available in PubMed Central (PMC), the "FREE Full text in PMC" icon will appear on the citation's abstract display under "Full Text Links." Select the icon to view the article in PMC.
     
      
3. Publisher's website
   • Journal publishers or related organizations may or may not provide free access to articles. Icons linking to these sources will appear on the citation's abstract display under "Full Text Links." Icons will often indicate free full text when the article is available for free.
     
      
4. CCC Library - Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
   • If you cannot get a PubMed article for free, submit a CCC Library Interlibrary Loan (ILL) request using the form linked below.