Embase Drug Search: Fast, Advanced and Clinically Focused

Embase’s Drug Search tool features unique filters specific to drugs and their effects. This tool uses a guided format to support drug information questions and clinical searching at the point of care by providing single-click advanced filters specific to drug behavior and route of administration. The Drug Search form includes drug names and manufacturers as well as the basic Embase filters such as age, language and date. 

What does this mean? When you click the Drug tab from Embase's home screen, a list of drop-down menus including Drug Fields, Drug Subheadings and Routes are conveniently available to narrow your drug search and find the most relevant results.

For example, if you were looking for randomized controlled trials about the adverse effects of dexamethasone published in the past five years, you could enter those criteria in Drug Search by using the tabs as follows. (Click on each screenshot to enlarge.)

Enter “dexamethasone” in the search bar at the top and enter your desired date range in the Date tab:

Embase drug search screen shot

Select "adverse drug reaction" and "drug toxicity" from the list of Drug Subheadings tab, using the "or" operator:

Embase drug search screen shot

Select "randomized controlled trial" from the EBM tab (note the tabs where you've entered search criteria remain orange):

Embase drug search screen shot

The screenshot below shows 303 results for this query at the time it was run:

Embase drug search screen shot
 

Embase is a very powerful and intuitive database that's well worth becoming familiar with for both clinicians and researchers. Please contact Becker Library for further information, tips and personalized Embase classes for your department. We're here to help!