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Searching for Bioethics Materials in PubMed and LOCATORplus

Using the Bioethics Subset When Searching PubMed

When searching PubMed, the Bioethics Subset is an easy-to-use search limiter designed to help users focus their search results on bioethical issues. The Bioethics Subset is based on a pre-built strategy that looks for journals commonly publishing articles on bioethics, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms used most often to index these articles (both as unique terms and in combination with other terms), frequently used ethics-related textwords, and any records indexed by the Kennedy Institute of Ethics bibliographers.

The Bioethics Subset can be used to restrict retrieval results by specifying it as a limit from the Subsets pull-down menu. Click Limits from the Features bar

to bring up the Limits menu and choose 'Bioethics' from the Subset pull-down menu. Limits also allows you to restrict to articles published in a specific language, to a specific subject subset, age group, gender, or human or animal studies, and to specific types of articles such as review articles. You can also limit by either Entrez or Publication Date.

The Bioethics Subset also can be employed as part of the search statement itself by combining the term bioethics with the delimiter [sb]. For example: autonomy AND bioethics[sb]

To review the structure of the bioethics subset, go to http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/pubmed_subsets/bioethics_strategy.html

At present, however, even within the Gateway the Bioethics Subset search limiter works only on the journal records in MEDLINE. A different strategy for limiting LOCATORplus searches to bioethics-related records is suggested below.

Limiting Retrieval to Bioethics Literature When Searching LOCATORplus

When searching LOCATORplus, we recommend that you use the Advanced Search Menu. In the initial search query box, enter a word or phrase. We suggest enclosing it in quotation marks, selecting: "as a phrase" in the next box, and requesting "Search In: Keyword Anywhere." Then combine your search by selecting: "AND" and inserting: ethics KIE into the second search query box, selecting: any of these, and Search In: Keyword Anywhere. Your search statement will look like this:

Search For: "posthumous reproduction" as a phrase, Search In: Keyword Anywhere; AND

Search For: ethics KIE any of these, Search In: Keyword Anywhere; then select: Search. As of this writing, the system retrieves 13 citations.

If you notice on the records retrieved such statements as: Library Location: Not at NLM, Call Number: Not held at NLM, and Status: No item data available, it is likely that the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature (NRC) owns the book.

More detailed information about recent changes in indexing practices is available in the more comprehensive searcher's guide:
CHANGING VOCABULARIES: A Guide to Help Bioethics Searchers Find Relevant Literature in National Library of Medicine Databases Using the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) Indexing Vocabulary and the 2005 Update.

Last updated: May 2007