HIHIM: Health Informatics and Health Information Management
Need help? Ask the Public Health Librarian
Example: Consumer health informatics search terms
| Consumer or patient health education terms | mHealth terms |
|---|---|
|
attitude to health consumer education consumer health health promotion health attitudes health knowledge health campaigns patient education patient education as topic patient participation self assessment self care self management self managing wellness programs
|
mhealth mobile health ehealth telehealth telemedicine technology-based interventions software
mobile apps mobile applications portable electronic apps cell phones mobile phones smart phone smartphone smartwatches text messaging portable software apps
|
Building a search strategy
For a simple search, enter keywords for key concepts of your topic. Your words will ALL be represented in each of the results abstracts. The more concepts you add, fewer and more relevant articles will tend to be in the results, but you may be missing articles where authors used different words from yours.
example:
elderly falls prevention mobile applications
For a more complex search, enter keywords or synonyms for each key concept, connected by OR, in separate lines. Do this for each component of your search. Then AND the lines together. This will find articles that have at least one term from each of your key concept groups.
example:
1. elderly OR geriatric OR "older adults"
2. falling OR accidental fall* OR "fall detection" OR falls
3. mobile applications OR mhealth OR mobile apps OR cell phone* OR smart phone* OR smartphone*
4. #1 AND #2 AND #3
Adding additional terms with OR to any of the lives will expand the results. For example, adding 'OR software' to line 3 changes the number of articles found from 129 to 438.
Tips:
In PubMed, putting an asterisk * at the end of a word finds that word, and also additional terms that begin with the word:
hospital* = hospital, hospitals, hospitalization, etc.
Parentheses around a terms will search as a phrase: mobile apps = mobile AND apps
"mobile apps" looks for these words in this order. Adding an asterisk to the end of a phrase does the same thing: mobile app* will find mobile app, mobile apps, mobile application, mobile applications.