Searching EMBASE Helen Rowlandson Medicines Information Manager Northwick

Searching EMBASE Helen Rowlandson Medicines Information Manager Northwick Park Hospital, London

Session aims p To understand the concepts of a basic search strategy in Embase p To describe the EMTREE thesaurus in detail so that you will be able to apply EMTREE to use Embase efficiently p To carry out advanced Embase searches

Plan What is Embase? p Medline v Embase p EMTREE p NLH Software – searching tools p Worked Examples p

What is EMBASE? Major biomedical & pharmaceutical database p European focus p >3, 500 journals, 70 countries p Subject coverage focuses on human medicine p n Includes drug research, pharmacology, pharmaceutics, health policy and management, public health

EMBASE vs Medline p p p MEDLINE USA coverage 1950 onwards Wide medical coverage In process Me. SH indexing p p p EMBASE European coverage 1974 onwards Drug/pharmacology focus Updated faster EMTREE indexing 30% overlap between the Medline and Embase

Searching EMBASE Controlled vocabulary = EMTREE p Uses natural language p US spellings rather than British p INNs used where possible p Acronyms & abbreviations can be used p Tree Structure – Hierarchy p Indexing: Terms added/Drug names p

NLH Software Open Internet and type: http: //www. library. nhs. uk/Default. aspx p Click “Athens users click here” p p Right click & then click on “create a shortcut” p Enter Athens password

NLH Software Embase 1974 to date p 2 options to search for terms: p n n Thesaurus mapping Browse headings

Explode/Focus p Explode n p Includes everything below in the tree structure Focus (Major) n Only includes articles where the Me. SH heading (descriptor) is the main focus of the article

Subheadings p Many more subheading options for drugs compared with Medline e. g. diclofenac

CAS numbers No real need to use them in EMBASE p Most medicines have EMTREE terms – even recently licensed ones p If a drug hasn’t got an EMTREE term assigned – use free text p

Limits Limit searches in similar way to Medline p Differences compared with Medline p

Publication types have their own facet / tree top of EMTREE terms that are searchable p Facet J: types of article or study p Build up your search and combine in the usual way (using BOOLEAN) with other search terms p

Worked example 1 p Are there any papers about UK SSRIs or SNRIs being used in the treatment of Huntington disease?

Worked example 2 p Are there any articles which discuss using high dose vitamin supplementation to treat autism ?