You can narrow your search to randomized controlled trials only by adding a search term of randomized controlled trials to your search statement. Example: antihypertensives AND "blood pressure" AND "randomized controlled trial".
There are also filters in specific databases that allow you to limit your search results to randomized controlled trial articles only.
CINAHL and Medline: Publication Type Filter
Randomized Controlled Trial
Database - CINAHL with Full TextCINAHL is the world’s largest source of full text for nursing and allied health journals and provides full text for more than 1,300 journals indexed in CINAHL.
Database - Medline CompleteMEDLINE Complete provides authoritative medical information on general health & medicine, pharmacology, neurology, molecular biology, genetics and genomics, histology, microbiology and many other subject domains.
To find randomized controlled trials in CINAHL or Medline, follow the steps below.
- Select one of the database links above to open the advanced search page.
- Enter your keyword(s) into the search boxes.
- Move down to the Limit Your Results section. This is where you can add filters to your search to tell the database that you only want articles that fit specific criteria.
- Select Randomized Controlled Trial from the Publication Type menu, as shown in the image below.
PubMed: Randomized Control Trial Filter
Database - PubMedPubMed comprises more than 24 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
To find randomized controlled trials in PubMed, follow the steps below.
- Select the database link above.
- Enter your keyword(s) into the search box.
- Select Search.
- Select Randomized Controlled Trial from the Article Type section on the left-hand side of the page, as shown in the image below.
Note! With any of these searches, you will need to limit to full text to get articles immediately available to you.