Using MEDLINE via OvidSP @ the Durham College Library – Storyboard

Presented by Samantha Askew

Hello, and welcome to the MEDLINE via Ovid SP tutorial. The first step is to load up the DC Library webpage which you can find at <www.durhamcollege.ca/library>. Once you have done so, access the subject guides through the <Subject Guides> tab.

Click on the <Health Sciences> tab, and find the <Health Sciences> hypertext link.

Locate the <Articles & Databases> tab, which you can find on the top ribbon.

Then select the database, <MEDLINE via Ovid SP>.

Afterwards, you’ll be prompted to log in. When you have entered your credentials, click <submit>.

Once you have successfully logged in, you’ll get a screen much like this one. As you can see, the default start screen is multi-field search, which lets you enter in more than one query. However, for this tutorial, the <Advanced Search> option is needed.

After you have clicked the <Advanced Search> button, you will get a page that looks like this. It allows you to use a term as a search inquiry for a variety of things, or as a simple keyword. For the sake of this tutorial, let’s say our search will be framed after the PICO question, “In a client with drug induced dry mouth, will salt water rinses as compared with throat lozenges increase saliva in the mouth?”

Going back to the question, I can infer that the patient is one with drug-induced dry mouth, the intervention is salt water rinses and the outcome is increased saliva. I have decided to start searching with the term “dry mouth” to start off with. I’m also going to keep “Map Term to Subject Heading” checked off.

Since the “Map Term to Subject Heading” box was checked, I get suggested subject headings based on what I searched.

Though sometimes it’s not always clear which suggestion is the best one, and to clear that up, we can figure out what each term means by click on the <i> under scope.

Doing so gives us a detailed description of what the word means, and what it is also used for. Xerostomia is precisely what I am looking for since it is the medical term for dry mouth, so I will go back to the subject headings, check the box and click <Continue>.

Sometimes, subheadings will be available to add to the subject heading. For now, I’m satisfied with just xerostomia, so I will leave all of the boxes unchecked and click the <Continue> button.

We’re brought back to the screen we started off with, but this time, we see our chosen subject heading in our <Search History>. But, we’re not done just yet; let’s add some more to the search. I’m going to conduct a search with the term <mouthwash> since we’re looking for rinses.

Again, I want to map this term to a proper <Subject Heading>, so I am leaving the <Map Term to Subject Heading> box checked.

The broad term “mouthwashes” was able to be mapped to a proper MeSH term. I am going to check off the <Mouthwashes> box and hit the <Continue> button.

None of these subheadings apply to the PICO question at hand, so I am going to go ahead and click the <Continue> button.

Now both of the searches are in the <Search History> box. However, you will notice that the subject heading <Mouthwashes> is greyed out, whereas <Xerostomia> is not. The grey colour simply means it is our active search. I am going to do one final search with the term <saliva> as I have done for “dry mouth” and “mouthwashes”, and also map it to a more specific subject heading. I will now click the <Search> button.

In this screen, we can see that “saliva” has two subject headings that pertains to it. Since we want the patient in the PICO question to produce more of their own saliva, we can safely eliminate <Saliva, Artificial> as a choice. I am going to select <Saliva> as the subject heading I want, and click on the <Continue> button.

All of the searches are still in the <Search History> box. One of the wonderful things about MEDLINE via Ovid SP (and all Ovid SP databases) is how those searches can be combined. To do this, all you need to do is select the search results you wish to combine, and choose one of the two Booleans: <And> to narrow, and <Or> to broaden. We want to narrow, so I will select the Boolean with <And>.

All 3 searches are combined into one search, which brings us a much better result of 32 articles. We can now begin to look through the results. All search results are underneath the search field, so I am going to <Scroll> down.

On the left hand side of the screen, there are useful functions that allow the articles to be sorted and filtered by various methods.

If you require more assistance with MEDLINE via Ovid SP, please don’t hesitate to contact Trish Johns-Willson. A special thank you goes out to Dawn Wright for proofreading the script of this tutorial.