{"id":15089,"date":"2022-12-14T13:01:50","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T17:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/?p=15089"},"modified":"2022-12-19T14:35:45","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T18:35:45","slug":"pubmed-proximity-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/pubmed-proximity-search\/","title":{"rendered":"New Feature in PubMed: Proximity Searching"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of 2022, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) added proximity search capabilities to PubMed<\/a>. With proximity search, users can search for two terms appearing within a specified distance from each other in any order in the [Title] or [Title\/Abstract] fields. The format for using proximity searching is \u201csearch terms\u201d[Field:~n], where n is the maximum number of words that may appear between the search terms.<\/p>\n

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History and Search Details for two searches. The first is \u201caddiction treatment\u201d[title\/abstract], which yielded 3,233 results; the second is \u201caddiction treatment\u201d[title\/abstract:~3], which yielded 6,677 results.<\/figcaption><\/figure>In a search that does not take advantage of proximity searching, putting terms in quotations will ensure that the terms appear exactly as written. For example, \u201caddiction treatment”[Title\/Abstract] will only retrieve articles that contain the exact phrase \u201caddiction treatment\u201d in the title and\/or abstract. However, if you instead search for \u201caddiction treatment”[Title\/Abstract:~3], the search will still return results with the exact phrase \u201caddiction treatment,\u201d but also \u201caddiction and treatment,\u201d \u201ctreatment for addiction,\u201d \u201ctreatment of opioid addiction,\u201d \u201ctreatment of substance addiction,\u201d and more!<\/p>\n

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The first three results for the search \u201caddiction treatment\u201d[title\/abstract:~3] include the following phrases in their abstracts: \u201caddiction require specialized treatment,\u201d \u201caddiction treatment,\u201d and \u201ctreatment of opioid addiction.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>More than two terms can be included in a proximity search. For example, a search for \u201cdrug addiction methadone\u201d[title\/abstract:~3] will include results that contain all of those words with no more than three words between each. A result may include the phrases \u201cmethadone treatment for drug addiction\u201d or \u201cmethadone, an established anti-addiction drug.\u201d However, it is not possible to specify that an exact phrase should appear within a certain distance of another term within a proximity search, as PubMed will treat each word within the quotations as separate terms.<\/p>\n

There are some other limits to PubMed\u2019s new proximity search feature. As mentioned previously, it can only be used with the [Title] or [Title\/Abstract] field tags<\/a>. Truncation<\/a> cannot be used in combination with proximity searching, and if terms in a proximity search include a wildcard (*), the proximity portion of the search will be ignored.<\/p>\n

If you are interested in learning more about structuring a proximity search in PubMed, NLM has created an interactive tutorial video<\/a> that can be completed in less than 10 minutes, or you can Ask a Librarian<\/a> at HSLS.<\/p>\n

~Rachel Suppok<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of 2022, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) added proximity search capabilities to PubMed. With proximity search, users can search for two terms appearing within a specified distance from each other in any order in the [Title] or [Title\/Abstract] fields. The format for using proximity searching is \u201csearch terms\u201d[Field:~n], where n is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"issue-archives","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[-1],"class_list":["post-15089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-2023","avhec_catgroup-issue-archives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15089"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15138,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15089\/revisions\/15138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/info.hsls.pitt.edu\/updatereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}