_KINS5508: Exercise Prescription for Individuals with Chronic Diseases and Health Conditions

In databases, searching for any ending of a word is called truncation. Frequently you can use * (asterisk) to truncate a word, but the symbol can vary across different databases. In some cases, you can use a wildcard to find alternative spellings that fall inside a word, rather than at the end.

Essential things to know about truncation in PubMed:

• PubMed does not offer a wildcard symbol to use within a word.
• You can use the asterisk * for truncation at the end of a word: exercis*.
• You can only truncate after 4 or more letters (which means, for example, you can't type run* to find runner or running): xxxx*.
• Truncation disables ATM, which is fine, since you'll generally be avoiding using ATM in your searching.
• You can truncate a phrase, but only the last word in the phrase. To do this:
  • Use a search tag: cardiovascular exercis* [tiab] (this is what I generally recommend).
  • Use double quotes around the phrase: "cardiovascular exercis*".
  • Use a hyphen: cardiovascular-exercis*.

Phrase searching works differently in PubMed than in most databases, so see the next tab in this box to learn more about it.

There are three different ways to do phrase searching for keywords in PubMed:

Option 1 (this is what I recommend)

Use a [search tag]: cardiovascular exercise [tiab]

PubMed first checks to see if the phrase appears in its phrase index. If it does, PubMed executes the search as requested. If it doesn't, PubMed ignores the search tag and tries to match the words x AND y using ATM.

Option 2

Put "double quotes" around your phrase: "cardiovascular exercise"

PubMed first checks to see if the phrase appears in its phrase index. If it does, PubMed executes the search as requested. If it doesn't, PubMed tries to match the words x AND y using ATM.

Option 3

Use a hyphen: cardiovascular-exercise

PubMed first checks the phrase index. If it isn't there, PubMed returns no results for your phrase.

Proximity searching in PubMed is new as of December 2022. At this time, I'd recommend you avoid using proximity searching, but if you'd like to learn more about it, you can look at the links below.

You're exporting only a few relevant references at this time, so first select them by using the check boxes to the left of each desired reference.

Then tap the Send to button above your first result. Select Citation manager.

In the Selection drop-down menu, choose Selection, then tap the Create file button. This will download an NBIB file of your checked references. Quick tip: after your research consultation, when you execute your final PubMed search, you won't select individual references. Instead you'll choose All results in the Selection drop-down.

Now go to Zotero. Under the File menu (PC) or Zotero menu (Mac), choose Import.

Follow the prompts in the pop-up box to confirm you want to import a file, then choose the file from your Downloads folder. While it isn't listed explicitly, Zotero supports NBIB files.

Confirm that you'd like to put the imported items into a new collection, to ensure you can locate them easily in your library. When the pop-up box confirms the import is complete, tap Finish.

You'll see your collection of references in your library. I recommend you rename the collection to reflect that it contains your exploratory searching references. Right-click on the collection name and rename it. Quick tip: after your research consultation, when you execute your final searches in PubMed and the Cochrane Library, you'll again rename your imported collections so you can keep track of where your references came from.