This section covers the development of systematic searching techniques for Medline. The majority of clinical questions can be answered using a combination of two searches.

The Subject Search attempts to find all articles relating to the subject area, irrespective of the actual question being asked. The skills required are knowing how to map to MeSH, and how to execute a textword search.

The Systematic Search is designed to answer clinical questions, irrespective of the actual subject. Here we use evidence based medicine filters. These can be optimised for sensitivity or specificity.

When we combine the Subject and Systematic searches using the Boolean AND operator we are able to answer our question.