Library Resources for Psychiatry Research

Accessing EMBASE

EMBASE is a database of articles published in medical and scientific journals of interest to healthcare practitioners.  It is produced in Europe and has coverage other than what's in PubMed.

You can access EMBASE through the Library's web site, from the Information Resources Page. When you are accessing EMBASE from off-campus you will have to login through the Library's proxy server.

Keyword Searching

When searching for articles, you can search by subject or by keyword. When you search a database by keyword, the system looks for the term you've entered as you've entered it. Spelling and context are important. If you misspell a word, you may not find any results. If you use a word in a different context, you may get results that are not useful. If you use a variant of a word different from what most authors use, you may not get the most important articles. The more terms you include, the more likely you are to get results that are useful.

The EMBASE default is searching by keyword. In order to use all the options available in EMBASE, click on the link labeled "Advanced" and then enter your terms in the search box.

Subject Searching

To use EMBASE's indexing system, click on the link labeled "Emtree" at the top of the screen.

Enter the term you want to search for and then click on the button labeled "Find Term".

The system finds terms that it thinks matches the word(s) you've entered.   When you have decided which term you want to use, click on the term.  

When you are satisfied that this is the term you want, click on the button labeled "Add to Query Builder".

Perform this task as many times as you need to build the search you want.  When you have all the terms you need, click on the button labeled "Search".

Applying Limits

In addition to including multiple terms, you can refine your search by applying limits to your search. Choose among the filters below the search box.

From this list, you can further refine your search in the following ways:

• Date: You can retrieve only those articles found during a certain time period.
• Article types:By selecting the menu for "EBM", you can choose what type of article you want.
• Age: You can limit to study subjects in a particular age group.

Search Results

Once you've completed all the steps of your search, you're ready to look at your results. PubMed originally presents your results in short format. The information here includes the author, the title of the article, and the source (journal title, volume and issue numbers and dates, and page numbers). This is the minimum amount of information you need to retrieve the article. However there is more information available to you. To a detailed record, click on the title of an article you're interested in.

If the abstract gives you the option of linking out to the full-text (there will be an icon in the top right hand corner of the screen) and it is a journal that the Library has electronic access to then you can retrieve the article directly on your computer. If there is not a link-out icon, you can check the Library's discovery tool to see if it is available independent of EMBASE.

If the article is not available electronically, it may be available in the Library in print format. Check the Library's discovery tool to see if the Library has a subscription to this journal.

If the Library does not have a subscription to the journal (either in print or electronically), you can still get the article through Interlibrary Loan.

Getting Help

There is online help from EMBASE in using the database.

And, of course, you can always ask a librarian for help with your search.