The Scoop on PubMed Subsets

There are four types of PubMed subsets: Journal, Subject, Citation Status, and Free Full Text. PubMed's Limit screen has a Subset pull-down menu where some of these subsets can be selected to limit your retrieval; alternatively the subset can be incorporated into a search by entering a subset value.

Journal Subsets

The following Journal subsets are available from the pull-down menu:

• Core clinical journals (used to be "AIM")
• Dental journals
• Nursing journals

A subset can also be incorporated into a search by entering a subset value. Journal subsets and their values are listed below. Several are closed subsets no longer being assigned to current data.

AIM - Abridged Index Medicus A list of indexed core clinical journals created 20 years ago
IM - Indexed Index Medicus journals
D - Indexed dentistry journals
N - Indexed nursing journals
X - Indexed AIDS/HIV journals, non-Index Medicus
B - Indexed biotechnology journals (assigned 1990 - 1998), non-Index Medicus
K - Indexed consumer health journals, non-Index Medicus
H - Indexed health administration journals, non-Index Medicus
R - Indexed reproduction journals (assigned 1972 - 1979), non-Index Medicus
C - Indexed communication disorders journals (assigned 1977 - 1997), non-Index Medicus
T - Indexed health technology assessment journals, non-Index Medicus

To search for a journal subset use jsubset? where ? stands for the journal subset value.

For example: neoplasms AND jsubsetaim

Note that the Journal subset does not use a search field tag.

Finding Subset Journal Titles

Search LOCATORplus, NLM's catalog of books, audiovisuals, and journals for subset journal titles. NLM's FAQ "Finding the Subset Journal Titles" tells you how to access lists of these titles. This FAQ is at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/speclist.html.

Subject Subsets

There are three Subject subsets available in the pull-down menu:

• AIDS
• Complementary Medicine
• Toxicology

Subject subsets may be searched as aids, cam or tox - using the [SB] search tag.

For example: asthma AND cam [sb]

Citation Status Subsets

PubMed contains several types of Citation Status subsets in the pull-down menu:

• MEDLINE - indicated by the tag [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
• In process (used to be "PreMEDLINE") - indicated by the tag [PubMed - in process]
• Publisher (citations electronically supplied by publishers) - indicated by the tag [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Citation Status subsets can be searched directly with the [SB] search tag as medline, premedline, or publisher.

For example: pain AND publisher [sb]

Free Full Text

Select PubMed Central to limit to citations with a link to free full text in PMC. You can also search this new subset as AND medline pmc [sb].

Note that citations that are out-of-scope for MEDLINE journals are indicated by the tag [PubMed].  HS

Next Article