Covid-19

Search Strategy

Tips for Searching the Literature
  • Search for your keywords in All Fields.  Use “inverted commas” to find an exact phrase eg: “coronavirus pneumonia” will find the two words beside eachother in the same sentence.  Combine similar synonyms with OR to find articles that mention one or other of the words/phrases. 
  • Search for Subject Headings that are provided in some databases: MeSH in PubMed; Emtree in Embase.  Subject Headings are added to article abstracts to indicate the main topic of the paper. Recent articles in press may not yet have Subject Headings. Ensure your search is comprehensive by searching for all relevant keywords as well as subject headings.
  • Combine searches of similar meaning with OR.   Combine different topics with AND eg: coronavirus AND pneumonia will find both words anywhere in different sentences.
  • Use Filters/Limits if appropriate: do not filter to Human if you think recent animal research may be useful.  Do not limit your results to full text in any database as this will exclude relevant articles from your results set.  Recent articles in press may only provide an abstract if full text is not yet available.  Do not limit to English language if you would like to include other languages in your result set – most articles will have an abstract translated to English but if the original article was in another language then an English language filter will exclude it from your results.
  • Sort your results by most recent.
  • Some databases allow you to create a personal login and folder where you can save your search to re-run again, or to set up alerts so you will receive regular emails when new articles are added on your topic.
  • As this is a rapidly developing area of current international research, search strategies indicated here may need to be expanded to include additional terms relevant to specific aspects of the research.
 

If you are searching the internet to find reports that are not published in journals, it is recommended that you use phrase searches to find more relevant results, for example: 

coronavirus OR “coronavirus pneumonia” OR “COVID-19” OR “2019 novel coronavirus infection” OR “2019-nCoV” 

Search Strategy

Open Scopus from the A-Z LibGuides page and click on the Advanced tab.  Copy and paste the following search string and click on Search:

Comprehensive search for recent coronavirus articles:

TITLE-ABS-KEY (coronavirus  OR  “Middle East respiratory syndrome”  OR  “Severe acute respiratory syndrome”  OR  “Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus”  OR  “Feline infectious peritonitis virus”  OR  “Murine hepatitis virus”  OR  “Avian infectious bronchitis virus”) AND RECENT(60)

Comprehensive search for recent articles on coronavirus and nosocomial infection and healthcare staff: 

(“nurse”  OR  “nurses”  OR  “nursing” OR “healthcare professional”  OR  “healthcare worker”)  AND  ((TITLE-ABS-KEY ( coronavirus  OR  “Middle East respiratory syndrome”  OR  “Severe acute respiratory syndrome”  OR  “Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus”  OR  “Feline infectious peritonitis virus”  OR  “Murine hepatitis virus”  OR  “Avian infectious bronchitis virus”)  AND  ORIG-LOAD-DATE  AFT  20200126)  AND  (“infection control”  OR  “Cross infection”  OR  “hospital acquired infection”)  AND RECENT (60) 

World's Highest Covid-19

We’re expanding access to UpToDate for anyone seeking the latest evidence-based updates to critical clinical content in the fight against Covid-19- direct links below – more to be added:

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome:

Acute respiratory distress syndrome: Clinical features, diagnosis, and complications in adults

Acute respiratory distress syndrome: Supportive care and oxygenation in adults

Acute respiratory distress syndrome: Epidemiology, pathophysiology, pathology, and etiology in adults

Ventilation:

Ventilator management strategies for adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome

Prone ventilation for adult patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome

Coronavirus

Coronavirus topic

Patient education topic

Society guidelines

Reference

RCSI Library. (2021). Coronavirus – COVID-19 Information Resources. https://libguides.rcsi.ie/covid19/searchstrategy