CINAHL

General rules

• Not case sensitive

Phrase searching

• Use double quotes “ “ to find those words together, in that order e.g. “breast cancer”

Wildcards and truncation 

• * at the end of a word replaces any number of letters e.g. cancer* will find cancer, cancers, cancerous, etc.
• * in the middle of a word can find multiple characters e.g. t*th will find tooth, truth, teeth, tenth, etc.
• * in the middle of two words will find one missing word e.g. electronic * records will find electronic health records, electronic medical records, etc.
• # in the middle of a word indicates that there could be an extra letter e.g. p#ediatric will find paediatric and pediatric
• ? in the middle of a word can find any results with an unknown letter e.g. organi?ation will find organisation or organization

Proximity searching

• Nx restricts the number of words between the two words, where the words can be in either order and with up to x words between them e.g. breast N3 cancer finds examples such as cancer of the breast, breast/ head and neck cancer, breast cancer, etc.
• Wx restricts to where there can be up to x words between the two terms but only in that word order e.g. breast W3 cancer finds examples such as breast/ head and neck cancer, breast cancer, etc. but not as cancer of the breast