Ovid

This page is intended to provide step-by-step guidance to creating a search in Ovid. Check out our Guide to the Basics. This goes over Boolean operators and how to use them. 

Some things to remember before you start:

• There are three basic Boolean operators: AND, OR, and NOT
  • AND combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms.
  • OR combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms.
  • NOT excludes terms so that each search result does not contain any of the terms that follow it.
• Break your question down into key concepts, then put those concepts inside parentheses.
• Quotation marks allow for words to be searched on together
  • Instead of searching for mental health, use "mental health"
• Asterisks allow for truncation and will catch all endings of a word
  • Instead of searching for (child OR children OR childhood), use (child*)

Ovid Search

There are multiple ways to search within Ovid. The example below will explore searching using "Advanced Search"

Analyze your research question and identify what your main key concepts are. Remember to add as many similar terms or synonyms with an OR to each concept to help broaden your search results. This example will search on individual key concepts then combine searches to get the the final search.

Example: Does caffeine have an effect on children?

Step-by-Step:

1. Start with your first concept. Identify all keyword(s) or phrase(s).

2. You will search on all your concepts individually.

If you don't identify any field codes, Ovid will default to searching .mp. This will search for articles where your words appear in several specific fields, including the title, abstract, subject heading, author keywords, and more. This will be a much broader search. You can also try limiting the search to title and abstract only by using .ab,ti.

Please see Searching Tips for more information on the different field code options. 

3. This is where you will want identify what operator you want to combine with AND or OR

Remember:

• Use AND to find results that contain all of the specified search terms. 
• Use OR to find results that contain at least one of the specified search terms, including synonyms or variations of a concept. 

4. Once you select your chosen operator, you can search on your combined searches. You can also combine searches by simply typing the combined search in the search box 1 AND 2. 

And that's it! Search 3 in the image above combined two different concepts to create a more advanced search.

Limiting Field Codes

Ovid cannot search the full text. Instead, it searches on several other fields to help with searching. These field codes can help further specify a search. 

Field codes worth noting:

• .ab,ti. - Title or Abstract
• .au. - Authors
• .hw. - Subject Heading word
• .in. - Institution
• .no. - Grant number
• .pt. - Publication type

To search using specific field codes, you will use the "Search Fields" option.

By selecting the "All Fields" tab below the search bar, you can see a complete list of all fields. 

Here you can search a keyword within several field codes

Example: (child* OR youth OR teen*).ab,ti. This will return articles that have these keywords in the title or abstract.

Example: ("Rush University Medical Center").in. This will return articles that have authors affiliated with Rush University Medical Center.

Combining Searches

Combining searches can be helpful when you want to build a more comprehensive search strategy. Searches can be combined using AND or OR. When you combine searches using AND you will narrow down your results. When you combine searches using OR you will broaden your results. 

1. To combine searches you will first want to conduct an "Advanced Search" on each key concept individually. This can be as many or as few searches as you need. Subject heading searches can also be combined with keyword searches for a more comprehensive search. For more details on Subject Headings, checkout Ovid Subject Headings.

2. You will want to select the searches you want to combine and use the corresponding Boolean Operator. Here we will combine the keywords with corresponding subject heading using the OR operator. Remember, (child* OR youth OR teen).ab,ti. will return articles that have these keywords in abstract or title. And exp Child / will return articles that are indexed with that subject heading. 

3. You can continue to combine searches to help build a more refined search as seen below. 

4. Line 7 of this search is combining two previously combined searches to create a comprehensive search.

Limiting Results

Users can limit the amount of results generated by a search by setting Limits. Limits can be found below the Advanced Search tab. Please note this needs to be applied prior to searching

Some examples of the limits that can be set include:

• Age groups
• Animal types
• Languages
• Publication Types
• And many more