Systematic literature searching for health and life sciences students

Saving, retrieving and evidencing searches

You can save and retrieve searches in some of the online databases. This can save you time, especially if you have built up a complex structured search, as it will enable you to run the search again later. In order to save searches you usually need to set up a personal account.

You may need to include a search strategy in your written work. This provides evidence of the search you have conducted, ensuring transparency and allows someone to reproduce it. ​

The PRISMA 2020 checklist states that the search strategy should "Present the full search strategies for all databases, registers and websites, including any filters and limits used".

A search strategy usually includes:

• where you have searched (database name and platform).
• the date you searched.
• what keywords you have used.
• how you have combined your keywords.
• what advanced search techniques you have used.
• how many results you have found.
• any limits/filters you have applied.

Creating a personal account

You can open and search a database without having to create a personal account but you need to create a personal account in order to:

• save searches (which you can re-run later).
• save articles/research papers.
• create folders/projects, so you can organise your saved articles.

EBSCOhost

The video and written guidance below explain how to create a personal account within EBSCOhost. This will enable you to save and re-run searches in a range of databases, including CINAHL and Medline. 

Ovid

The video and written guidance below explain how to create a personal account with Ovid. This will enable you to save and re-run searches in a range of databases, including Embase and Maternity and Infant Care. 

CINAHL, Medline and more (EBSCOhost)

The video and written guidance below explains how to save and retrieve searches in the EBSCOhost databases.

Embase and Maternity and Infant Care (Ovid)

The video and written guidance below explains how to save, re-run and share searches in the Ovid databases.

It is advisable to speak to your tutor to check how they would like this information presenting in your work. 

Evidencing your search from the EBSCOhost databases (such as CINAHL, Medline)

When evidencing your search strategy using the 'Recent activity' page, make sure all the search lines are visible. To do this you can:

• click on the 'Show more searches link' (at the bottom of the page) as needed. 

• change the settings on the ‘Recent activity’ page to show up to 30 lines

If you are searching across more than one database in EBSCOhost, the results will have automatically started to de-duplicate from the first page of results (and in the recent activity screen). To get an accurate number of how many results there were prior to de-duplication you will need to open up the 'Databases' filter (from within the 'All filters' menu, underneath the search bar). 

Then add together the number of results from each database to get the total (204 + 147 + 46 = 397).

When evidencing your search strategy and results, if the numbers are different in the results list/recent activity screen, when compared to the total of results when added together in the ‘Databases’ filter, you may need to evidence both pieces of information (to ensure the totals match). So, a screenshot of both the ‘Recent activity’ screen and a screenshot of the breakdown of results per database (from the ‘Database’ filter). Alternatively, you can search the databases individually.

Taking a screenshot of the search strategy

You can take a screenshot of your search strategy from the ‘Recent activity’ screen in the database(s) using:

• In built tools in Windows or Mac devices
• An iPad or Android device
• Browser extensions such as Go Full Page:
  • Chrome
  • Edge

You can access ‘Recent activity’ via the ‘My dashboard’ menu.

Download the search strategy into a Word document

From the recent activity page, you can choose to download the search strategy into a Word document using the download button.

Choose MSWord from the format options.

More details instructions are available in the video and document below. 

Evidencing your search from the Ovid databases (Embase, Maternity and Infant Care)

The video and written guidance below explains how to export your search strategy into Word when using the Ovid databases. 

This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Deed.