How to search using Ovid

Searching Ovid databases requires you to have an answerable research question and a well developed search strategy.  If you don't have these you may wish to review:

Basic searching requires an understanding of keyword searching, boolean operators and some search techniques:

The ideal search:

1. Search one term or phrase at a time – this ensures accuracy and gives you the ability to easily edit your search
2. Combine synonymous terms using OR, a concept at a time.
3. Combine the concept sets with AND.
4. Apply filter and limits last

Basic searching in Ovid databases is as simple as adding in a few words or phrases into the search box. 

Note: The default search in Ovid is the Advanced Search which offers the most flexibility in terms of searching. This feature is what is described in this guide.

Searching with keywords:

1. From the Ovid main search page.
2. Click in the search box and type in your term (e.g. mortality).
3. Click the box next to Map Term to Subject Heading (to turn off this setting).
4. Click Search (button).

Searching with more than one keyword

If you are using more than one keyword you need to consider how to combine the keywords to get the items you want.  You do this with boolean operators. When using boolean operators you may also need to consider using brackets for your search to help control when those operations are done.  

Controlling keyword searches

What if you only want to look for keywords in specific parts of the item record?  Each part of the item record is known as a field.  You can focus your search by only looking for keywords in the title field or in the title and abstract fields.  This is known as Field Searching.

There are two ways to combine concepts in Ovid. 

• You can use boolean operators (e.g. AND, OR, NOT) within the search box. 
• You can select the search lines you want to combine in the search history by clicking in the box next to the search and then clicking on the AND (button) or OR (button).

Note: if you can't see the search you want to combine in the search history, click Expand (link; located below the search history on the right).

For a search on the topic of "What is the risk of mortality due to cell phone use in distracted teen drivers?" we might want to search the concepts of mortality, cell phone, distracted driving and teens. 

Each group of terms for a particular concept are entered together and searched separately.

mortal* OR fatal* OR death

"cell phone*" OR "cellular phone*" OR "mobile phone*" OR smartphone* OR cellphone*

"distracted driv*" OR "driving while distracted" OR "inattentive driv*"

teen* or adolescen* or youth or young

Enter this search into Ovid (works best with Medline, Embase or PsycInfo):

1. From the Ovid main search page (by default this is Advanced Search).
2. Copy and paste the following into the search box:
   mortal* or fatal* or death
3. Click Search (button).
4. Copy and paste the following into the search box:
   "cell phone*" or "cellular phone*" or "mobile phone*" or smartphone* or cellphone*
5. Click Search (button).
6. Copy and paste the following into the search box:
   "distracted driv*" OR "driving while distracted" OR "inattentive driv*"
7. Click Search (button).
8. Copy and paste the following into the search box:
   teen* or adolescen* or youth or young
9. Click Search (button).
10. Now we need to combine the separate concepts using AND.
11. To connect these separate concepts, click in the box next to all the concepts you want to combine.
12. Click AND (button).

View this search in action:

Combining keyword concepts using Brackets

For less complex searches you can use brackets to help you combine searches all on one line.

If you have an article citation and you want to find out more about the article you can search using keywords in the title and the author(s) last name.

Example search for Embase:

Looking for this article

Yockey R.A., Barnett T.E. Distracted and Impaired Driving Among U.S. Adolescents, 2019, USA. Health Promot Pract 2024;25(1):60-64. doi:10.1177/15248399221150814

This search string would be helpful

(yockey AND barnett).au AND (distracted AND adolescents).ti.

These may be helpful to understanding this search string: