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Boxer Library

OVID Medline

This is an informative guide on the different features of Ovid Medline.

Searching in OVID

OVID works most effectively if you search one concept at a time and then combine those searches. 

OVID uses the National Library of Medicine’s controlled vocabulary to describe the articles in the database, also known as MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). Searching a MeSH term means that you are searching for the subject or topic assigned to an article, instead of searching for the occurrence of a word within the article’s title, abstract, or full text. This approach is more exact and retrieves better results than searching for a phrase (like you might when using Google). 

For example, if you wanted to search for articles about arthritis pain, the best way to do so is to search the terms “arthritis” and “pain” individually, and then combine the two terms using the operator AND. For example, “arthritis pain” (searched as a keyword or text word) returns a much smaller number of articles than searching the MeSH term. 

It’s important to note that MeSH is updated annually, and not all concepts are assigned MeSH terms. Depending on your topic, searching keywords or text words will be more appropriate. If you are not sure, the Library is ready to help you.  

Saving and Sharing Searches

If you are running a very complex search, or you are working collaboratively, you may want to save or share your searches. There are two ways to do this.

  1. Create a personal OVID account

  2. Use the “Email all Search History”, “Copy Search History Link” or “Copy Search History Details” functions

Creating a personal account (which is NOT tied to your HelixNet ID) allows you to save your searches so you can run them later, or so that you can schedule a search to run automatically and send you an email with new results. You can also edit your search history using this function.

The “Email all Search History”, “Copy Search History Link” or “Copy Search History Details” functions are new as of 2021, and do not require you to have a personal account. Clicking on these options allows you to:

  • Email a copy of the search you have run to yourself and/or a collaborator at RFUMS
  • Copy a link to the search, which you can save in a document and re-run at a future date
  • Copy the search history and a link to the search, which you can save in a document and re-run at a future date. You can also edit your search history using this function.