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Ovid APA PsycInfo Search Filters

NOT-NOT limits

Limits using not-not

The NOT-NOT logic seems as though it shouldn't work but it is as perfect as a weird logic can be. We avoid putting AND US.lo. in the search as not all records include the US location field. APA PsycInfo imports records from PubMed/Medline which uses Medical Subject Headings. This requires a different syntax, .mh. rather than .lo. (Don't worry-- you won't be quizzed on this!)

Also, a best practice is to avoid NOT'ing out other countries as there may be comparative studies that include the US. not-not excludes any study that has the location or MeSH terms we DON'T want (whether it is country/continent based, age based, or human/animal based) but it keeps records that have the terms from the 2nd not phrase. It also keeps records with NO location or MeSH terms. 

Are these limiters perfect, i.e. do they remove all non-relevant records?

Nope. Sorry, but extreme caution is being used to develop the limiters. But these will remove a significant number of non-relevant records.


How to use NOT-NOT limiters found in this LibGuide

  1. Run your search as usual.
  2. Copy the statement EXACTLY AS IT IS, replacing last-line-# with the last line # of your search OR the line # of the search statement you want to limit.
    • don't put "#" in front of the line number, i.e. 20 not #20

Limit to US studies

Limit to US studies (Revised 22 April 2024)

Why is this so long?

APA PsycInfo uses location codes to indicate the country. HOWEVER, these location codes are single terms only and they cannot be "exploded" which is when a broad term (ex. United States) is selected and, by exploding, all of the indexed terms for states and cities are included. (In Ovid Medline, this same search looks like: not ((exp africa/ or exp asia/ ....). In PsycInfo, each location has to be selected for either inclusion or exclusion, hence the VERY long limit to US studies. Additionally, APA PsycInfo has Medline records in it with MeSH terms. Those needed to be added as well. Fortunately for you, all you have to do is copy the search starting with not and plug it into your search strategy.


last-line-# not ((afghanistan or africa or african or albania or algeria or andorra or angola or anguilla or antarctic or antarctica or antigua or antilles or arab or arabia or argentina or armenia or aruba or asia or atoll or australia or austria or azerbaijan or bahamas or bahrain or Balkan or baltic or bangladesh or barbados or barbuda or belarus or belgium or belize or benin or bermuda or bhutan or bissau or bolivia or bosnia or botswana or brazil or britain or british or brunei or burkina or burundi or caicos or cambodia or cameroon or cartier or cayman or chad or chile or china or christmas or cocos or colombia or comoros or congo or coral or costa or croatia or cuba or curacao or cyprus or czech or czechoslovakia or democratic or denmark or djibouti or dominica or dominican or ecuador or egypt or emirates or equatorial or eritrea or estonia or ethiopia or europa or europe or falkland or faroe or faso or fiji or finland or france or french or futuna or gabon or gambia or gaza or Georgia or germany or ghana or gibraltar or glorioso or greece or grenada or grenadines or guam or guatemala or guernsey or guiana or guinea or guyana or haiti or heard or herzegovina or holy or honduras or hong or howland or hungary or iceland or india or indies or indonesia or iran or iraq or ireland or israel or italy or ivory or jamaica or jan or japan or jarvis or jordan or kazakhstan or keeling or kenya or kingdom or kiribati or kitts or kong or korea or kosovo or kuwait or kyrgyzstan or lanka or laos or latvia or lebanon or leone or lesotho or liberia or libya or liechtenstein or lithuania or lucia or luxembourg or macao or macau or macedonia or madagascar or malawi or malaysia or maldives or mali or malta or marino or martinique or mauritania or mauritius or mayen or mayotte or micronesia or miquelon or moldova or monaco or mongolia or montenegro or montserrat or morocco or mozambique or myanmar or namibia or nauru or navasa or nepal or netherlands or nevis or nicaragua or niger or nigeria or niue or norway or oman or pakistan or palau or palestine or palmyra or panama or papua or paraguay or peoples or peru or pierre or pitcairn or poland or polynesia or portugal or principe or qatar or republic or reunion or romania or russia or rwanda or sahara or salvador or saudi or scandinavia or scotland or senegal or serbia or seychelles or sierra or singapore or slovak or slovakia or slovenia or solomon or somalia or spain or spratly or sri or sudan or surinam or suriname or svalbard or swaziland or sweden or switzerland or syria or taiwan or tajikistan or tanzania or thailand or tibet or timor or tobago or togo or tokelau or tome or tonga or trinidad or tunisia or turkey or turkmenistan or turks or tuvalu or uganda or ukraine or uruguay or ussr or uzbekistan or vanuatu or vatican or venezuela or verde or vietnam or vincent or wales or wallis or yemen or yugoslavia or zambia or zealand or zimbabwe).lo. not ("North America" or "United States" or US or "Appalachian Region" or "Great Lakes Region" or "Mid-Atlantic Region" or "Midwestern United States" or "New England" or "Northwestern United States" or "Pacific States" or "Southeastern United States" or "Southwestern United States" or Appalachia or "Alabama" or "Alaska" or "Arizona" or "Arkansas" or "Baltimore" or "California" or "Los Angeles" or "San Francisco" or "Colorado" or "Connecticut" or "Delaware" or "District of Columbia" or "Florida" or "Georgia" or "Hawaii" or "Idaho" or "Illinois" or "Chicago" or "Indiana" or "Iowa" or "Kansas" or "Kentucky" or "Louisiana" or "Maine" or "Maryland" or "Massachusetts" or "Boston" or "Michigan" or "Minnesota" or "Mississippi" or "Missouri" or "Montana" or "Nebraska" or "Nevada" or "New Hampshire" or "New Jersey" or "New Mexico" or "New Orleans" or "New York" or "New York City" or "North Carolina" or "North Dakota" or "Ohio" or "Oklahoma" or "Oregon" or "Pennsylvania" or "Philadelphia" or "Rhode Island" or "South Carolina" or "South Dakota" or "Tennessee" or "Texas" or "Utah" or "Vermont" or "Virginia" or "Washington" or "West Virginia" or "Wisconsin" or "Wyoming").lo,mh.)

Example

  • US cancer survivorship studies in English, published 2020-2024 (Pitt login required)
    • See line 7 for the example
      • To see the entire search, click the Expand link on the right just under the Search History and just above Share Search History
    • Line 8 limits to journal articles and publication dates 2020 through 2024 

Limit by age groups

Limit by age groups (Coming soon!)

Keep studies with adults; remove studies with ONLY infant, child, and/or adolescent populations

 


Keep studies with adolescents and adults; remove studies with ONLY infant and/or child populations

 


Keep studies with infants; remove studies with ONLY child, adolescent, and/or adult populations

 

Limit by language and publication date

Limit by language of publication (Revised 27 March 2024)

This may appear very complicated, but that's because there are records in APA PsycInfo that do not have a language assigned to them. 

English-language publications

last-line-# not ((albanian or arabic or bulgarian or catalan or chinese or croatian or czech or danish or dutch or estonian or farsi iranian or finnish or french or georgian or german or greek or hebrew or hindi or hungarian or italian or japanese or korean or lithuanian or malaysian or nonenglish or norwegian or polish or portuguese or romanian or russian or serbian or serbo croatian or slovak or slovene or spanish or swedish or turkish or ukrainian or urdu) not English).lg.

Example


Limit by date of publication range (Revised 27 March 2024)

You can choose the date range using the Publication Year boxes in the Limits area under the text entry box. Or, you can limit by using this phrase:

limit line-# to yr="XXXX - XXXX"

  • Which would look like this in a search: limit 20 to yr="2010 - 2025"
    • 20 refers to the line number of the search to limit the date range
    • 2010 is the earliest date
    • 2025 is the latest date range
      • You can set to as far in the future as you want: limit 20 to yr="2010 - 2050"

Example

Limit to human or animal studies

These filters are not perfect in that you will still find animal studies in the human studies filter and human studies in the animal studies filter. This has to do with terminology used to describe the studies. However, these filters are designed to not exclude studies with no terminology to describe the study population (human or animal) or to exclude studies that include terminology for both human and animal.

Limit to human studies

last-line-# not ((animals.mh. or Animal.po. or "Animal research"/ or exp invertebrates/ or exp vertebrates/ or exp "Plants (Botanical)") not (humans.mh. or human.po.))

Example

cancer + human studies

  • See line 2 for the results with human studies

Limit to animal studies

last-line-# not ((humans.mh. or human.po. or exp "Plants (Botanical)") not (animals.mh. or Animal.po. or "Animal research"/ or exp invertebrates/ or exp vertebrates/ ))

Example

cancer + animal studies

  • See line 3 for the results with animal studies