Psychiatry Clerkship

Better searching strategies return more precise results in less time which saves you time in the end.

PsychINFO uses a Thesaurus. It operates much like PubMed's MeSH, defining the terms to insure everyone is using the same terminology to define a topic / condition / disease, etc.

1. Click on APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms - the second term from the left in the top menu.

2. Enter your condition or disease into the box headed "Browsing: APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms."  Terms DO NOT GO IN THE UPPERMOST SEARCH BOX.

3. You may have several terms appear in the list. To determine which best matches your search needs, click on the heading.

You can read the "Scope Note" to determine when using the term is appropriate. It also shows you the year introduced, which is significant if it is a newer term. In this case you may want to use the Broader Terms function to insure you are retrieving articles relevant under an older definition.

4. To create a search using the term, check the box at the left of term and use the Add button just above it. In the top bar, the term will have some coding attached to it to tell the database to find articles indexed using the term. This gives you a precise result because the articles have been "tagged" to indicate the major topic of the article. (In this case, DE "Delirium Tremens")