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Measurement Instruments for Research, Education, and Clinical Practice: Searching Literature Databases without Test Fields

PubMed/MEDLINE

Currently, there is no way to focus your PubMed/Ovid MEDLINE search to retrieve only those papers that include the actual measurement instrument.* However, below are some ways to find papers that might have instruments. 

Incorporate relevant controlled vocabulary into your search. PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE have several useful MeSH terms for finding measurement instruments, including:

MeSH terms for finding reviews of measurement instruments are also available:

Try searching for an instrument name in quotes if you know the specific instrument you are looking for and combining the term with a MeSH term above.

To find a measurement instrument for a particular topic/variable, try searching by keyword, e.g., quality of life, or MeSH term, if available, e.g., "Quality of Life"[Mesh], and combine with one or more of the MeSH terms above.

*To see if an article has the actual measurement instrument included, try searching the full text of the article for the name of the instrument. If the instrument is provided, it will most likely be found in the Appendix or other supplementary material.

ERIC (Education Resources Information Center)

ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) provides articles describing measures used in education, and in some cases, the actual measure. 

  • In Advanced Search, enter your keyword(s) in the first search box, e.g., medical education, and leave the dropdown menu to the right as is. A specific test name can be substituted for keywords in the first search box.
  • In the next search box type, (test* OR measure* OR questionnaire* OR scale* OR survey* OR assessment*) AND appended, and select "Abstract" from the drop-down menu to the right.  
  • Execute the search.