Cochrane Library: Searching

Click on the Cochrane logo below to access  the Cochrane Library.

Entering search terms: 

AND: Finds both terms  e.g. nausea AND pregnancy 

OR: Finds either or both terms   e.g. kidney OR renal 

NOT: Finds the first term but not the other e.g. breast cancer NOT female 

NEAR: Acts like AND, but the words must be within 6 words of each other e.g. cancer NEAR liver 

Child*: Finds child, children, childhood, etc 

*natal:  Finds prenatal, antenatal, postnatal, etc.

Quotation marks:  Finds phrases e.g. “acute pain” ; (AND is the default) 

Plurals: Are found automatically, e.g. hand finds hand or hands 

British/American spellings: Some are found automatically, e.g. tumour finds tumour or tumor. Or, use an asterisk e.g. tumo*r 

More Search Tips are located in the right sidebar on the Advanced, Mesh Search and Search History Pages

On September 15, 2012 Wiley updated the Cochrane interface to add features:

• Auto-suggest features within both basic and MeSH search functions
• Updated display of search results and filtering options
• Ability to view search terms and results on the same page
• Ability to insert lines and add one search to one another
• Improved MeSH look-up feature
• Hover-over Tool Tips giving a brief explanation of the functions

The searching videos on this page will be updated within the next few weeks to reflect these changes.  In the meantime, the handouts below explain these improvements.

This tutorial (5:09) will demonstrate doing a simple search, using Advanced Search to combine concepts, saving searches, and creating autoalerts.

This tutorial (5:49) will demonstrate searching Cochrane using Medical Subject headings(MeSH),  combining separate searches with Search History, and saving search histories.