Download the User Guide for more information: INAHTA Publications Repository_Users Guide

Quick start instructions:

  • Filter results using the drop-down menus for the year published, the type of publication, and agency. 
  • A bar will appear next to the results: green indicating a high relevance, red a low relevance to the search executed. 
  • Results can be sorted by name, year, issue, agency, or publication type by clicking the column header.
  • A number of Boolean operators and special characters can be used to refine the search string:

OR
Use OR (in capital letters) to find documents that contain at least one of the words or phrases searched. Results show all documents that contain both or just one of the words or phrases searched.  
NOTE: "OR" is the default setting for the search tool – if no operator entered, this is how the search is executed.
Example: if you searched for diabetes OR monitoring, results would be documents containing diabetes or monitoring or both. (NOTE: this is identical to the default search setting, i.e., diabetes OR monitoring is the same as a search for diabetes monitoring).

AND NOT
Use AND NOT (in capital letters) or the minus sign (-) to find documents that contain a word or phrase while excluding those documents that contain a different word or phrase. Results show all documents that contain the searched word or phrase while eliminating those documents that contain a different word or phrase.
Examples: searching breast AND NOT cancer will retrieve documents that contain breast but not those containing the word cancer.  This search can also be written with the minus sign like this: breast – cancer
NOTE:  the Boolean operator NOT is not the same as AND NOT operator. 
Example:  breast NOT cancer is the same as searching for breast only.  This is different than breast AND NOT cancer (see above).

AND
Use AND (in capital letters) to find documents that must contain two or more words or phrases. Results show all documents in the repository that contain all the words or phrases searched.
Examples: if you searched for diabetes AND monitoring, all documents containing both of these words will be shown.  If you searched for “cancer diagnosis” AND “depression treatment” documents containing both these phrases will be shown, listed in decreasing frequency of occurrence.

Phrase
(“ ”)    A group of words enclosed in quotation marks (“ ”).  Results show all documents that contain the exact phrase contained in the quotation marks.
Example:  if "back pain" was searched, all documents that contain this exact phrase are listed, with the documents where it appears most frequently at the top.

Root search
(*)    Search for words with the same root using the asterisk symbol (*). Results will show all documents that contain the root word or any variation of it.
Example: if you used hypothyroid* then both hypothyroid and hypothyroidism will be listed in the results by decreasing frequency of occurrence.

Required search
(+)    Search for documents that must contain a specific word or phrase, use the plus sign (+) before the word or phrase. All documents that contain that word or phrase are listed in decreasing frequency of occurrence.
Example:  search for (free exercise) +osteoarthritis will retrieve documents that contain osteoarthritis, and also those may also contain the words free or exercise.

Grouping search    
Use parentheses to create more complex search protocols. ( ). Operations within the parentheses are applied together then other elements in the protocol, similar to mathematics.    
Example: +(cancer OR metastases) +lung  retrieves documents with either cancer or metastases or both, and then, of these documents only those also containing lung are listed in the results.

 

Download the User Guide for further information: INAHTA Publications Repository_Users Guide