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Making Sense of Subsets |
by Nancy Ottman Press, Consumer Health Network Librarian, NN/LM PNR
The PubMed subset menu in Limits makes it easy to search for a specific subset within the PubMed database. Simply click on the Subsets pull-down menu. Right? Right, with a few exceptions. Those exceptions as well as the "subset rules" are discussed here.
There are three main types of subsets:
1. Journal subsets. These are subsets in which certain journal titles are included -- all articles from those specific titles, sometimes just for specific years. Some of these subsets are very small, like the AIDS journal subset which only includes 40 titles. The titles in any one subset may be subject related (like dentistry) or may be collated for some other reason (like the AIM or Abridged Index Medicine subset). The catch is that there are some journal subsets NOT on the subset pull-down menu. Here's an example of how to do this search: to get the Health Care Administration subset of journals you would include
... AND jsubseth
in your search strategy. Do not use the [sb] field tag.
2. Subject subsets. PubMed has built-in search strategies, hedges, to find articles on a particular subject. These articles might come from any journal. An example is the new CAM or Complementary and Alternative Medicine subset. You could use the Limits pull-down menu or you could search using the subset field tag, as in:
cam [sb]
3. Citation status subsets. These subsets have nothing to do with subjects or journal titles, but rather have to do with the source or status of a citation. PreMEDLINE, soon to be replaced by "MEDLINE in process" is one of the citation status subsets. Once more, these can be searched using the Limits pull-down menu or the search field tag indicator [sb].
As more subsets are added to PubMed, it's sometimes hard to keep them all straight. For example, notice that there are two AIDS subsets, a journal subset and also a subject subset. The following table presents the information by subset name, type of subset, and how to search for it in PubMed.
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Subset Name |
Type of Subset |
Search in PubMed |
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Journal |
Subject (search strategy) |
Citation Status |
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AIDS (same name is used to refer to two different subsets: AIDS journal subset OR AIDS subject subset) |
X |
jsubsetx |
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X |
pull-down menu under limits OR aids [sb] |
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AIM |
X |
pull-down menu under limits OR jsubsetaim |
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Biotechnology (indexed only 1990-1998) |
X |
jsubsetb |
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Communicative Disorders (indexed only 1977-1997) |
X list of titles not available |
jsubsetc |
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Complementary Medicine |
X |
pull-down menu under limits OR cam [sb] |
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Consumer Health Journals |
X |
jsubsetk |
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Dental |
X |
pull-down menu under limits OR jsubsetd |
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Health Care Administration |
X |
jsubseth |
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Health Technology Assessment |
X |
jsubsett |
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Index Medicus |
X LocatorPlus: search for index medicus (as a phrase) in abstract/index tags; ~7000 titles; ~4000 current titles |
jsubsetim |
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MEDLINE |
X |
pull-down menu under limits OR medline [sb] |
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MEDLINE in process (was preMedline) |
X |
pull-down menu under limits OR premedline [sb] to be replaced by in process [sb] |
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Nursing |
X |
pull-down menu under limits OR jsubsetn |
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Publisher-supplied |
X |
pull-down menu under limits OR publisher [sb] |
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Reproduction and Population (indexed only 1972-1979) |
X |
jsubsetr |
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Toxicology |
X |
pull-down menu under limits OR tox [sb] |
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Table by Nancy Press, 2/16/01