The aged care search collection is developed using PubMed and provides searches based on a particular topic of interest. You may want to use elements of the collection to develop your own personalised searches and this can be done in a variety of ways. Either by expanding our ‘one click’ searches to your own needs or creating a search from scratch. There are also some standard search filters that can help to make your own search more specific to your needs.
The Knowledge and Implementation Hub (KIH) has also created a collection of searches called 'beyond PubMed' a search collection based on our workforce defined priority topics. These have been developed using Google web search™ but can also be used on other search engines such a Bing, Safari or Duck Duck Go.
Creating your own PubMed searches
PubMed is set-up to enable basic and advance use depending on your knowledge and confidence. If you're a new user try the 'all fields' search, as this will map your results to both it's internal classification (MESH) and free text terms. If you are an advanced user you can select the specific fields you want.
Below is a collection of videos that give you an overview on how PubMed works and how to use it's basic and advanced elements.
PubMed online training resources
How to use our searches and create your own
To help you use our searches and to create your own, we have created a seven step slide show guide to assist you in finding research that is relevant to your needs.
Search filters
Search filters are another way to find research easily, as someone else has constructed the search for you. Search filters can be designed for specific populations, conditions or settings. Some search filters have undertaken validation in their development and others have been developed without. Search filters can assist you with searching in the following ways:
- You can attach them to your own search
- Limit your search results to a particular group, condition or setting
- Saves you time and skills by locating the most relevant results to your search
Search filters can help you to focus and simple search quickly to a particular subject area, population, setting or condition. This means that you can put in your key terms and then add the filter to the results without having to develop the second part.
Sources of filters
You can find validated filters and their associated papers, describing steps to validation and any limitations below:
The ISSG Search Filter Resource provides a collection of validated filters across a variety of population, setting, condition and publication types which includes some searches to use in PubMed.
Flinders filters provides a collection of validated filters across health care.
Beyond PubMed
PubMed is a valuable source of knowledge but is largely limited to journal articles written by academics. Journal publications may be referred to as the ‘peer-reviewed’ literature. ‘Gray literature,’ on the other hand, is a term used to describe information that is not published in traditional academic or scientific journals. This includes annual reports, white papers, commissioned reports, standards, and policy documents.
Gray literature can be found through searching organisational websites or using online search engines such as Google, Bing, or Duck Duck Go, to name a few. This information is not managed and distributed by commercial publishers, but rather produced by organisations, governments, industry, or individuals, and it exists all around us. You could also visit organisational websites, to see if they have a resources or publications section, containing useful research in their field of interest.
Google Advanced ‘one-click’ searches
Searching for grey literature can be a tricky process. To make things a little easier we have created a set of one-click web searches for finding important Australian resources on our aged care topics. These are separated into searches for information created by and/or held on:
- Organisational websites
A useful option when you want information from reputable non-profit organisations such as Dementia Australia and reduce the number of results from commercial, for-profit companies. - Government websites
Use this option to keep up to date with state or national aged care policies and initiatives, as well as standards and regulations from agencies such as the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. - Educational or research websites
Useful for finding information about courses of learning or research undertaken at universities, TAFE colleges, and specialist research organisations.
You may wish to use these as a starting point for your research and use them to develop your own ongoing searches.
Using Google Advanced Search
Searching the internet can be both time consuming and overwhelming when trying to answer a question, however, with the power of advanced searching on Google, it is even easier to find the type of information you need online.
Advanced search allows users to narrow their search results by using specific keywords, phrases and filters, making it easier for users to quickly find what they are looking for. While also being able to refine by certain limits such as location, language, domain (site) and file type.
Our topic searches above are only starting points to online research in each field and you may wish to edit the searches in advanced search or create your own. Below we provide information on how to do this yourself, with a handy PDF to print for future use.