Skip to Main Content

Database Help

This guide contains links and instructions for effective searching of selected SMHS databases.

​Embase provides access to biomedical literature. It includes over 6 million citations and over 2,900 journals not included in PubMed. It is known for its coverage of international biomedical literature, drug research, medical device information, and indexing of conference abstracts.

Embase includes:

  • Over 32 million records, including MEDLINE titles
  • Over 8,500 journals from over 95 countries, including MEDLINE titles
  • Over 2,900 indexed journals unique to Embase
  • Over 1.5 million records added yearly, with an average of over 6,000 each day
  • Over 2.4 million conference abstracts indexed from more than 7,000 conferences dating from 2009
  • Full-text indexing of drug, disease, and medical device data

Embase also provides unique search forms not available in other databases. Check out the FAQs and video tutorials to learn about effective searching of this database.

Phrase Searching

Put phrases inside quotation marks to find that exact phrase

          "thyroid storm"

Boolean & Proximity Operators

AND = all search words must be present but do not have to be adjacent, software assumes AND if no operators are listed

          "bipolar disorder" AND parenting

OR = at least one of the search words must be present

          adolescen* OR teen$

NOT = search words before NOT must be present, any search words listed after NOT must be absent

          "breast cancer" NOT female$

NEAR = search words must be within x words of each other, words can be in either order)

          symptom NEAR/5 fever   ( at most 4 words between the words)

NEXT = search words must x words of each other, words must be in specific order listed

       symptom NEXT/5 fever  (at most 4 words between words, symptom must appear before headache)

 

Note: Use parentheses to indicate what parts of search should be processed first.

          vaping AND (adolescen* OR teen$)

Truncation / Wild Cards

* (asterisk) = replaces 1 or more letters, type at least three characters before using *, * can be placed in middle or at end of word

          catheter* searches for catheters, catheterization, etc., but not catheter

? (question mark) = replaces 1 letter

          catheter? searches for catheters, but not catheter or catheterization

$ (dollar sign) = replaces 0 or 1 letter

          catheter$ searches for catheter and catheters, but not catheterization

 

NOTE: Truncation characters may be used within phrases. Example:  "cardiac catheter$"

Embase Tutorials

The following tutorials are made available by our Embase vendor, Elsevier.