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Chiropractic Articles in PubMed
Searching PubMed to find journal articles about chiropractic care

Prerequisites: The researcher already knows how to…

• navigate PubMed
• formulate a search strategy using the correct terminology from the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) thesaurus
• combine one or more terms in the Search box in MeSH, before executing the search
• display the citations so that the abstracts are visible.

For a review, see the PubMed tutorial.

An example for review:

The doctor wants articles that both emphasize low back pain and discuss chiropractic care.

 

The following steps will result in the PubMed screen shown below.

First, set up the search to retrieve articles that focus on chiropractic:

1. In MeSH database, search for "manipulation".

2. Checkmark at least the first two headings:

• Manipulation, Chiropractic
• Chiropractic
• Manipulation, Spinal (optional: see note***)

3. From the "SEND TO" pull-down menu, select "Search box with OR".

Then, without leaving the MeSH database, append the specific topic "low back pain" to the chiropractic terms already in the search box.  To append this search term:

4.  Search MeSH for "low back pain".

5. Click on the link Low Back Pain.

6. Checkmark the subheading "therapy" to further narrow this search.

7. Checkmark the phrase "Restrict Search to Major Topic headings only".

8.  From the "SEND TO" pull-down menu, select "Search box with AND".

The MeSH page will look like the one below.

9. Now that the search strategy is ready, click on the "Search PubMed" button.

Contact a librarian for assistance with revising the search if results are unsatisfactory.   It may be advisable to:

• Expand the search if there are too few citations retrieved.
• Narrow the focus of the search if results are too general.

It is the researcher's responsibility to evaluate the citations and abstracts for relevance.

*** Note:  Authorized headings for chiropractic have changed over the years.  Mapping between old and new terms is a sophisticated process in PubMed.  However, when doing a comprehensive search of the years 1999-2000, the authorized subject heading "Manipulation, Spinal [MeSH]" should be part of the search strategy.  Unfortunately, "Manipulation, Spinal" will retrieve also some articles on manipulation that are not about chiropractic. It is easy to ensure that chiropractic is at least mentioned, in the title or abstract, by amending the search term and enclosing the new search phrase in parentheses, as follows: (Manipulation, Spinal [MeSH]" AND chiropractic [tw])

The edited search for articles about chiropractic and low back pain would then be:

("Manipulation, Spinal" [MeSH] AND Chiropractic [tw]) OR "Manipulation, Chiropractic" [MeSH] OR "Chiropractic" [MeSH] AND "Low Back Pain/therapy" [MAJR]