Searching PubMed using Successive Fractions

PubMed

"PubMed Health provides information for consumers and clinicians on prevention and treatment of diseases and conditions.

PubMed Health specializes in reviews of clinical effectiveness research, with easy-to-read summaries for consumers as well as full technical reports. Clinical effectiveness research finds answers to the question “What works?” in medical and health care.

PubMed Health is a service provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM)." (About). 

Successive Fractions

A successive fraction search is when you Search a term to note the amount of results and continue the process by adding on one term at a time. 

Controlled Language

Once on the home page of the PubMed Database I clicked on where it said Advanced under the search bar. 

                

  Once on the advanced search page I clicked on the dropdown at the top that said 'more resources'.

 

       Next I selected MeSH Database. The MeSH database is similar to a thesaurus in that you can search terms that you would like to use and it will tell you the term that you need to use to bring back more accurate results.

 

        Once in the MeSH database I used the top search bar and entered in ADHD and got the following result.

 

        MeSH gave me the search term Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity. They also list terms that you could combine with ADHD such as therapy and history. If you wanted to choose these terms then you would click in the box provided and then in the right hand corner click the button that says 'add to search builder' then select search PubMed and it will bring back all results fitting those terms. 

          But for this search I wanted to give specific number amounts of results found for ADHD as the terms were added one at a time. 

        I did both searches as controlled language. The first I simply just typed in the MeSH term myself and added to it as I went and the second I used the mesh search generator shown in the picture below.

 

            Search 1:

         Using the search bar I typed in Attention Deficit Disorder With Hyperactivity and received 33040 results.

 

I then added AND prevention and control and received 768 results.    

             And finally I added AND children and received 578 results which is a big change from the first search but still a lot of results to sort through. 

               Search 2: 

            I navigated back to the MeSH database and typed into the search bar ADHD. When it brought up my team Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity I selected the box that said 'Restrict to MeSH Major Topic' and clicked the button 'Add to search builder' then clicked 'search PubMed'. 

          I ended up receiving 21081 results which is a difference of 11,959 less results compared to when I just simply typed in the term myself in the first search. 

I then went back to MeSH and typed in ADHD again but this time I selected the subheading term prevention and control and the selected 'add to search builder' then 'search PubMed'. With these terms I received 144 result making a difference of 624 less results than my first search. 

 

        And finally I repeated the above steps and after adding Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity and prevention and control to my search builder I searched in the MeSH search bar the term children. MeSH return the result of Child so I added that term to my search builder and clicked search PubMed.

 

       I received 98 results making a difference of 480 results from the first search. I am happy with the number so now I can look through the results and find ones that I would like to use. 

        I found two that seemed to match all of my search terms and also looked as if they would be something that is useful to me. 

1. 

2. 

        Result 1 is a study that compares the effects of physical activity before school and sedentary classroom interventions on symptoms, behavior, mood, and peer functioning of children around the age of 6 that are at risk for ADHD. 

               Result 2 is a study that examines if family based preventive intervention for an inner city child that is entering first grade could effect the development of ADHD. 

            Both results cover my topic however, result 1 leans towards more of the control side and result 2 is more preventative. I would most likely use both of these results but I believe that the best result is result 1. 

"        Lifestyle changes with the potential to successfully manage ADHD over the long term, beginning at an early age and continuing across the life span, may be critically important to positive outcomes for individuals with the disorder" (Hoza 1). This article shows that the effects of ADHD can be managed or controlled by physical activity. The article also suggests that early intervention can delay or prevent the onset of ADHD. 

Searching PubMed with the two different style I found that using the MeSH database to target specific terms greatly effects the amount of results that you receive. I think that for future searches on PubMed I will definitely use the MeSH database to narrow my search and to have results that contain all of my search terms in the correct manner. 

Resources

About PubMed Health - National Library of Medicine - PubMed Health. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/about/

Hoza, Betsy, et al. "A Randomized Trial Examining the Effects of Aerobic Physical Activity on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms in Young Children." Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports,. U.S. National Library of Medicine, May 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4826563/.