Tips for using the BNF effectively - e-newsletter March 2010

How can I search online versions of the BNF more effectively?

• Enter the term you wish to search for in the Search box as
  • a single word
    • e.g. hyponatraemia
  • or a phrase enclosed in double quotes
    • e.g. "aplastic anaemia"
  • or several terms separated by spaces or combined with logical operators:
    
    

    heart failure	retrieves documents containing either (or both) of the words
    +heart +failure	retrieves documents containing both the words
    liver heart +failure	retrieves documents containing liver and/or heart which must also contain failure
    "heart failure"	retrieves documents containing both words as a phrase
    alcohol -excipients	retrieves documents containing alcohol but not excipients

  • a word truncated using the wildcard characters * or ?
    
    To search for any words beginning with a particular stem, add the wildcard character * at the end:
    • e.g. chemother* to match chemotherapy and chemotherapeutic
    You can use the wildcard in the middle to stand for one or more characters:
    • e.g. estr*ol to match estriol and estradiol
    You can replace a single character in the search term by using the wildcard character ?
    • e.g. wom?n to match woman and women
      
      Parkinson? to match Parkinsons but not Parkinsonian
    Note: If you search using a stem with fewer than 3 characters or the truncated term matches more than 10 terms, you will be prompted to lengthen the stem.
• Then click on the Search button (or press the Return key) to perform a full text search
• The search result displays an explanation of what has been searched, the number of matching documents, and the list of documents retrieved. Results are sorted so that the documents that are the best match for your search are displayed first.
• The Results page will have a set of tabbed headers with the active tab highlighted, which by default is for a Full Text search.

• Interactions to display results of an interactions search;
• Monographs for a list of monographs containing the search term;
• Preparations for a list of non-proprietary and proprietary preparations containing the search term;
• Appendixes & Indexes to retrieve records present in the appendixes and indexes that contain your search term. (Note: This does not include entries in Appendix 1 (Interactions); use the Interactions tab for an interactions search.)