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PubMed: Database Intro & Search Tips

An introduction to PubMed.

Guide Objectives

After viewing this guide, you should be able to...

  • Find relevant references in PubMed quickly and effectively.

  • Understand how information is structured and utilized in PubMed so you can build an effective search.

  • Save searches, build collections, and export results.

Meet PubMed

PubMed is a free searchable platform of more than 35 million citations. 

Areas of focus include medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, allied health, and the pre-clinical sciences. Coverage dates from the 1950s to the present. 
About PubMed:

  • Provides access for several National Library of Medicine (NLM) literature resources:

    • MEDLINE: The largest component of PubMed.Articles are indexed with MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) and other metadata.

    • PubMed Central (PMC): A full-text archive of selected journals. 

  • Access to full-text articles (pdf) is only available through the UHSP Library PubMed link 

Accessing PubMed

Always access PubMed through the UHSP Library

Using our link to PubMed ensures that you have access to the full-text articles provided by the Library. If you don't use the UHSP library to access PubMed, you will only see the following links:
  • A link to BUY the article from the journal publisher
  • Possibly a link to an open-access version of the article
  • Possibly a link to the article in PubMed Central
If the full text of an article is not available...

If the article is not available, you will see a link to request the article through Interlibrary Loan. After submitting your request, the Library is usually able to email you a PDF of the article in 2-3 business days.

What are MeSH Terms?

MeSH = Medical Subject Headings

Medical Subject Headings are the standard terms indexers add to PubMed records to help improve search results.

PubMed indexes articles using a controlled vocabulary, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). A specific set of terms is assigned to describe each article. MeSH terms provide consistency and uniformity in your search. This ensures all articles about a certain subject are found when you run a search. For example, if you search for the term "heart attack", PubMed knows that this term maps to the MeSH term "myocardial infarction".  

Using MeSH Terms improves your search by accounting for variations in language. You can find MeSH terms and search PubMed using the MeSH Database.