Health and solidarity

PubMed

Biomedical literature citations and abstracts, with links to full texts when available from publishers or PubMed Central.

Visit the official website ↗

A concrete use case

Prepare a literature search

Record the question, search terms and search date. For a selected reference, retain the title, authors and version of the text you actually consulted.

Check first: Read methods; a record is not personal care guidance.

A volunteer listens to an older woman in a community center — AI-generated contextual illustration · Fictional scene, not a photograph of this organization’s premises or services.

Compare this resource with other directory records →

Our worked method

A correction is linked: which document should you read and cite?

Article: Find the text supplying the claim.
Linked notice: Read the correction and its scope.

Record the article’s PMID and follow linked notices.
Compare the passage used with the notice’s content.
Keep both references and explain what was corrected.

Fictional example: an article table lists 48 observations; a notice corrects this to 84. The reading note keeps the corrected table and notice link without extending that change to the rest of the article.

Your useful record: Article, notice, affected passage, dates and reading limitation.

Records show a documentary relationship; they do not supply medical advice.

Choose another worked method

Editorial method informed by NLM — Errata, retractions and linked citations. Documentation consulted on 2026-10-09. Examples are fictional exercises, not results from a live service test.

Separate the record, abstract and full text

PubMed helps locate references; its record and the complete article are different objects.

Reading guide: the three elements to connect. Details follow in the table.

Fields and distinctions to understand
Element	Meaning
[tiab]	Search titles and abstracts.
[au]	Search by author.
Full text	Follow available links; full text is not always available.
Search Details	Advanced Search displays the translated query, including term mappings.
Filters and coverage	A restriction narrows the corpus. Keep the executed query to explain which documents were excluded.

Try the reasoning

Illustrative situation. An abstract reports a result without detailing every inclusion criterion. What is missing?

Read the explanation

Read the full methods before applying the result to another population. If access remains unavailable, state that limitation.

Documentation for the table : NLM — PubMed User Guide · 2026-10-25. The exercise is an editorial example.

Documented resource details

Distinguish citations from full text

PubMed is maintained by NCBI at the National Library of Medicine. It searches citations and abstracts; full articles are reached through links to other resources. PubMed Central is a separate full-text archive.

Record: Title, authors, journal, date and abstract.
Text: Follow the publisher or PubMed Central link.
Use: Read methods; a record is not personal care guidance.
Notice and article: “Erratum in” on an article leads to the correction; “Erratum for” on a notice identifies the corrected article. They are separate records.
Persistent filters: Applied filters can remain active for subsequent searches. MeSH-based filters can exclude records not yet indexed.
Interpreted query: In Advanced Search, Search Details shows the executed strategy, which may include terms added or transformed by the system. Retain that strategy alongside the entered query when you need to explain or repeat the search.
Search log: Record the date, filters, searched fields and selection criteria. To compare two attempts, change one element at a time and inspect syntax warnings; a lower result count does not establish a better selection.
Query actually executed: Search Details shows the translated query. Quotation marks, wildcards and field tags can change or disable automatic mapping to MeSH terms. Review the translation before comparing searches.
Source: NLM — PubMed User Guide · consulted on 2026-10-17
Operator order: Write AND, OR and NOT in uppercase. PubMed processes searches from left to right; use parentheses to group concepts that should be processed together.
Source: NLM — PubMed User Guide · consulted on 2026-10-17

Does every PubMed result give free access to the article?

No. Full-text availability depends on the linked resource.

Initial profile documentation

Initial profile documentation consulted on 2026-10-25. Added details carry their own source and consultation date above.

Practical methods for this resource

Editorial selection, without website certification. Read our method.