Quick Searching versus Comprehensive Searching in PubMed

How do I know the type of search I need?

It will depend on your goal: a quick search is useful when you need to find a few articles, you’re looking for an overview on a topic, or you need to see what has been recently published on a topic.

Comprehensive searching is when you’re looking for all available evidence to answer a specific question. This means you need to consider all the ways a topic has been described and all the places where evidence has been published, including pre-prints, conference abstracts, grey literature and more.

Quick Search

A quick search in PubMed can be the combination of just a few search terms, for example: migraine and neuromodulation and adults.

A quick search can also be more detailed by using MeSH terms, and limiting by specific types of article. For example:

("Diabetic Foot"[Mesh]) AND "Wound Infection"[Mesh] AND (meta-analysis[Filter])

While these searches look different and take advantage of different features within PubMed, they remain fairly simple: both are looking for information on a topic but aren’t trying to find anything that has ever been published.

Comprehensive Search

When conducting a comprehensive search, you will include synonyms for your search terms and consider all the different ways a topic could be discussed within the literature; the resulting search will look much different. For example:

((("Length of Stay"[Mesh] OR "Length of Stay" OR "Stay Length" OR "Stay Lengths" OR "Hospital Stay" OR "Hospital Stays" OR "Stay, Hospital" OR "Stays, Hospital" OR "Hospital Admission" OR "Hospital Admissions")) AND (("Rural Population"[Mesh] OR "Rural Population" OR "Population, Rural" OR "Populations, Rural" OR "Rural Populations" OR "Rural Spatial Distribution" OR "Rural Communities" OR "Communities, Rural" OR "Community, Rural" OR "Rural Community"))) AND (("Socioeconomic Factors"[Mesh] OR "Socioeconomic Factors" OR "Factor, Socioeconomic" OR "Socioeconomic Factor" OR "Factors, Socioeconomic" OR "Standard of Living" OR "Living Standard" OR "Living Standards" OR "Social Inequality" OR "Inequalities, Social" OR "Inequality, Social" OR "Social Inequalities" OR "High-Income Population" OR "High Income Population" OR "High-Income Populations" OR "Population, High-Income"))

Comprehensive searches use MeSH terms and keywords and include a combination of parentheses and Boolean operators to organize the search strategy. However, they take more time to create, and you will need to identify relevant terms and test your search strategy to find out if any resources are left out of your search results. Consider your own research and information needs to determine if a simple or comprehensive search is appropriate, and don’t hesitate to reach out for assistance.

Interested in learning more?

Searching can be a challenging process! At the Health Sciences Library, we offer a range of tools and services to help.

PubMed Subject Guide
Systematic Reviews – Conduct the Search Subject Guide
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