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New feature in PubMed®: Proximity searching

PubMed® recently added a new proximity searching tool to help you create better searches. The tool allows you to search for multiple terms within a specified distance of each other, such as one or more words apart, in any order. This can only be done with the title and the abstract fields. This tool can already be found in other databases, such as CINAHL®.

How to use Proximity Searching in PubMed®

Proximity searching uses the following format:
          “search terms”[field:~N]

“search terms” are the words you want to search for.

• You can add two or more words within quotation marks. The more words you use, the narrower the search gets.
• You cannot use truncation (e.g., pain*). A possible work-around is to use “OR”.
  For example:
  Instead of: “ICU nurs*”[title:~1]
  Use: “ICU nurse”[title:~1] OR “ICU nurses”[title:~1]
• You cannot specify the order in which the words appear in the search.

 field specifies where within an article you want the proximity search to be done.

• Currently, you can only use the [Title] and [Title/Abstract] fields:
  • [Title] looks for the search terms within the titles of articles.
  • [Title/Abstract] looks for the search terms within the titles and abstracts of articles.
• When searching [Title/Abstract], use the field abbreviation “tiab” to limit the search to this field.
  For example: “neoplasm[tiab]”.

 ~N specifies the maximum number of words apart you want the search terms to appear.

• ~0 means the search terms must be adjacent to each other.
• ~1 means there is at most one word between all the search terms
• ~2 means there is at most two words between all the search terms, and so forth.

Proximity Search Example

To search for articles that contain the terms ‘staffing’ and ‘model’ within at most two words of each other and within the title or abstract, the search query is:

"staffing model" [tiab:~2]

Here are some of the results from that search query:

In the titles, you will see that the words ‘staffing’ and ‘model’ appear adjacent in one result, and two words apart in the other result.

In the abstract snippets, you will notice that the words don’t appear next to each other. This is because PubMed® highlights all words that match the search terms in the search results, regardless of the query parameters.

Check out this video for more information on how to use PubMed®’s Proximity Search: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/oet/ed/pubmed/quicktours/proximity/index.html

If you have questions about PubMed®’s Proximity Search, or about database searches in general, book a one-on-one consultation with a Library Services team member, or reach out to us with your questions at AskLibrary@nshealth.ca.

Vinson Li

Librarian Educator
Yarmouth Regional Hospital, Western Zone