To create a usable search string, you'll need to combine your boolean operators and modifiers. Remember that AND combines your keywords, and OR combines your synonyms and related terms. When using more than one synonyms or related term you'll need to nest these terms between the boolean operator AND with parenthesis and the operator OR. Let's take a look at a few examples:
In breast cancer patients experiencing insomnia, what is the effect of yoga on quality of life?
(breast cancer OR breast neoplasm OR breast tumor) AND (insomnia OR sleeplessness OR sleep disorders) AND (yoga OR yoga therapy OR relaxation)
(postoperative OR post operative OR post-surgery OR post-surgical) AND chlorhexidine bathing AND (surgical site infection OR surgical wound infection OR postoperative infection)
(chronic kidney disease OR chronic renal failure OR renal insufficiency OR kidney failure) AND (vegetarian OR plant based diet) AND renal function
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AND combines search terms to retrieve articles. In a research question this will be your keywords. AND narrows your search. For example:
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OR combines all of your synonyms and related keywords. OR will broaden your search. OR is important, because it combines multiple terms. For example:
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NOT excludes terms from the set of search results. The use of NOT is generally discouraged, since it can unintentionally exclude relevant articles from your results. NOT will narrow your search. For example:
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TRUNCATION
Type an asterisk following a word stem to retrieve a variety of word endings.
Example: searching prevent* retrieves records with the terms prevent, prevents, preventing, prevention, and preventative. Searching mobili* will retrieve records with mobility, mobilization, mobilize.
QUOTATIONS
Type quotes around all phrases to ensure that the phrase is searched instead of each word individually:
Example: “public health” or '"affordable care act"
NESTING
Refers to the use of parentheses to organize a search statement that uses more than one kind of connector or operator (AND, OR, NOT). Nest search terms whenever there's only one text entry box.
Example: (fatigue OR tiredness) AND (breast cancer OR breast neoplasm).