• Articulate inclusion and exclusion criteria for your search.
• identify relevant filters to include.

Consider how you want to scope your inquiry. What traits fall outside of that scope? Consider traits such as:

• Date of publication
• Type of study
• Population demographics
• Setting/location
• Language of publication

Knowing this ahead of time will help you to focus your search, and also help you when screening results for relevance.

When you’re conducting a search, you may find it helpful to apply filters to help eliminate results that fall outside of your search criteria. In PubMed, you can find these filters on the left-hand side of the search results page.

• Select a specific filter to apply it to your results. Select it again to remove the filter, or select “reset all filters” at the bottom of the list to remove all filters from your results.
• You can customize the list of filters that appear next to your results by selecting “additional filters” at the bottom of the list.

• Note that including additional filters in your menu will not automatically apply those filters to your search results. You will still need to select the specific filters you wish to apply.