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Occupational Therapy

Basic Search

Try out a search in PubMed using keywords related to your topic to find relevant results. 

Then, focus your search using filters on the left side of the search results page, such as the publication date and article type:

Don't see a filter you want to use? Use the Additional Filters to customize PubMed for your research!

1. Click on the additional filters button to add more filter options for article type, species, language, sex, subject, journal, and age. 

2. Check the filters you want to add, then click Show.

3. Now, you'll have those options on your search results page. Check a box to apply that filter to your results. 

Abstract View

Once you've found an article you're interested in reading, click on the title to go to the abstract view

On this page, use the tools on the right to save or email the article and find the full article as a PDF using the full text links, including "Find It @ CSUDH Lib." Use the page navigation to skip to a section on the abstract view, such as similar and cited by articles and a list of tags for the article, including MeSH terms. 

Abstract view of an article in PubMed with tools including full text links and page navigation on the right.

Search in PubMed often? You can create a free MyNCBI account to save and organize articles in one place, add custom search filters, and view your search history. 

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

Most articles in PubMed include a list of Medical Subject Headings or MeSH terms. This is a standardized way of tagging what an article is about regardless of what specific keywords or terms are used in the article.

1. Start with a relevant article. Look at the MeSH terms section for ideas on relevant MeSH terms you might use!

2. Click on the term and Search in PubMed to find all articles with that tag, or Add to Search to use the term in a search with other MeSH terms or keywords. 

You can also search for MeSH terms using the MeSH thesaurus to view more details about the term and add terms to the PubMed search builder.

MeSH thesaurus page view for "Substance-Related Disorders" with the PubMed Search Builder highlighted on the right.