Finding Research Instruments

PubMed is a major international database of medicine and other health science-related disciplines.

PubMed is probably not the best place to search for instruments by topic. The records in PubMed aren't designed to highlight the names of these tools, the database is extremely large, and the search techniques can be challenging. That said, you can look over the suggestions below should you decide you'd like to try.

The size of the PubMed database makes it a challenge to search for research instruments by topic. Like other databases, it does have fields you can search, one of which is MeSH (Medical Subject Heading). There are a few MeSH terms that may help with locating instruments. These include:

• Surveys and Questionnaires
• Health Care Surveys
• Health Surveys
• Health Status Indicators
• Psychological Tests
• Personality Tests
• Psychometrics
• Data Collection

MeSH is probably the most effective way to search PubMed for instruments by topic. For assistance, please contact a librarian.

If you know the name of the instrument, try searching for "instrument title" being sure to enclose the name in quotes.

Again, due to the size of the database, and in particular because of the way information is entered into PubMed, this is probably not the best database in which to find instruments.

The inconsistency with which records in PubMed about validity or reliability of instruments are labeled makes it a poor choice for this purpose, unless you have a specific instrument in mind. If that's the case, search for the instrument name in quotes followed by the following string of words, which is a combination of MeSH terms and keywords:

"name of instrument" AND "Validation Study" [Publication Type] OR "Validation Studies as Topic"[Mesh] OR "Reproducibility of Results"[Mesh] OR "validity"[tiab] OR "reliability"[tiab]

The image below shows an example of this, using the Beck Depression Inventory as the sample instrument.