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Advanced Searching Techniques: Filters

What are filters?

Search filters are used to limit search results. Many databases feature a built-in set of search filters that are commonly used to limit search results by age group, publication type, study type, and more.

If you use the filter rather than a keyword, you can guarantee that the resources returned are relevant to your topic. 

Keywords search everywhere for the term, including full text (unless otherwise specified). The keyword may only appear once in the text of a paper rather than being a substantial aspect of the article. Whereas when you choose a specific category under a filter, that category will be a substantial aspect of the article.

For example in a database with an age filter like PSYCInfo: 

The search (Sleep and teenagers) will return lots of results, but in some resources, "teenagers" might not be the focus of the study or research. Additionally, researchers may use other synonyms, such as adolescence or youth, and the database would not include these resources in the search results. 

On the other hand, if you search for just the word sleep, then add the filter Adolescence (13-17 yrs), all your search results will be specifically about people aged 13-17 and sleep. 


Please see below for more information about filters in specific databases.

Specific Databases

You can limit your results in database searches so that you aren't overwhelmed with irrelevant titles. Most databases have filters you can add that will limit the results by:

  • Published date
  • Peer reviewed (scholarly) sources
  • Type of source (Journal, Newspaper, Conference Paper, etc.)
  • Language
  • Full-text

To access the filters, click on advanced search and scroll down.

Unique filters available

  • Age: limit your search to the age of participants in a research study
  • Gender 
  • Clinical Queries: Clinical Queries are specific search strategies which can be applied to retrieve clinically-relevant and scientifically-sound results. Clinical Queries are developed to retrieve results containing clinically-sound studies. The five strategies which can be applied are Therapy, Prognosis, Review, Qualitative, and Causation (Etiology).
  • Special Interest: Limit to advanced nursing practice, case management, critical care, etc. 
  • Other options:
    • Inpatients/Outpatients
    • Pregnancy
    • Randomized Controlled Trials
    • Evidence-Based Practice
    • First Author is Nurse
    • Any Author is Nurse

Unique filters available

  • Single-blind peer review is a conventional method of peer review where the authors do not know who the reviewers are. However, the reviewers know who the authors are (source).
  • Double-blind peer review means the identity of both the author and reviewer is kept hidden. If the authors' identity is unknown to the reviewer, it will prevent the reviewer from forming any bias (source).
  • Editorial review must be handled with a minimum of two editors (source).
  • Open peer review means the identity of the author and the reviewer is known by all participants, during or after the review process (source).
  • the traditional peer review process where reviewers remain anonymous to anyone but the journal's editors, while authors' names are disclosed from the beginning (source).

To access the filters, click on advanced search and scroll down.

Unique filters available

  • Education Level (examples below are not an extensive list of available choices)
    • Adult Education
    • Grade 1
    • High Schools
  • Intended Audience (examples below are not an extensive list of available choices)
    • Administrators 
    • Community
    • Teachers

Unique filters available

Item Type

  • Articles
  • Book Reviews
  • Books
  • Research Reports: Research reports provide current analysis on many of today’s most hotly debated issues from a diversity of perspectives from all corners of the world. Topics include climate change, cybersecurity, energy policy, international relations, terrorism, and various public health issues, including COVID-19 (source).
  • Miscellaneous
 

**This database includes abstracts and Indexes. Full text is not available. 

Unique filters available

  • EBM Reviews (source)
    • The EBM Reviews limiter is a quick method to limit your search to the following 6 titles within MEDLINE:
      • The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
      • ACP Journal Club
      • Clinical Evidence
      • Evidence-based Mental Health
      • Evidence-based Nursing
      • Evidence report/Technology assessment
  • Human//Animal
  • Sex
  • Clinical Queries
    • Designed to narrow your results in nine research areas:
      • Therapy, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Reviews, Clinical Prediction Guides, Qualitative, Causation (Etiology), Costs, and Economics.
    • Three strategies are provided for each area:
      • High Sensitivity - the broadest search to include ALL relevant material. It may include less relevant materials.
      • High Specificity - the most targeted search to include only the most relevant result set, may miss some relevant materials.
      • Best Balance - retrieves the best balance between Sensitivity and Specificity.
  • Age Related (examples below are not an extensive list of available choices)
    • Infant, Newborn: - 1 month
    • Young Adult: 19- 24 years
  • Publication Type (examples below are not an extensive list of available choices)
    • Support of Research
    • Clinical Trial Phase I
    • Case Reports
  • Subject Subset
  • Animals (examples below are not an extensive list of available choices)
    • Mice
    • Rabbits
    • Sheep

Unique filters available

  • Age: limit your search to the age of participants in a research study (this applies to humans) ((examples below are not an extensive list of available choices)
    • adulthood (18 yrs & older)
    • young adulthood (18-29 yrs)
    • school age (6-12 yrs)
    • very old (85 yrs & older)
  • Gender
    • Women
    • Men
  • Classification: represent general areas of psychology which are used to classify each document. (examples below are not an extensive list of available choices)
    • affective disorders
    • clinical psychopharmacology
  • Methodology: limit your search to the methodology used in a research study, such as clinical case study, literature review, meta-analysis, etc. (examples below are not an extensive list of available choices)
    • empirical study
    • quantitative study
    • literature review
  • Tests & Measures to find measures used in a study and sometimes the actual measure. (examples below are not an extensive list of available choices)
    • beck depression inventory
    • pittsburgh sleep quality index
    • child behavior checklist
  • Population  limit your search to the group of participants in a research study (human, animal, female, male, etc.) (examples below are not an extensive list of available choices)
    • female
    • outpatient
    • animal
    • transgender 

Source

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