Search Features

To use the Search features, select 1 of the 3 options below:

• Contains any words (default)
• Contains all words
• Advanced Search

Contains Any or All Words

To use the Contains any words feature, enter your keywords into the search box separated by a space. Do not include commas or Boolean operators. The results will contain all publications with any of the keywords within the document title, metadata, or text. Those publications with all keywords will be ranked higher in relevance.

When using the Contains all words feature, the results will include only publications that contain each of the keywords within the document title, metadata, or text.

Advanced Search – Search Commands and Syntax

The advanced search option allows you to search using advanced search syntax. Below is a list of advanced search features you can use and the syntax for each.

Boolean Operators

Combine keywords using the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT. These commands can be paired with parentheses.

• AND – results must contain all keywords
• OR – results may contain any number of keywords
• NOT –excludes results that contain these keywords

Wildcards and Truncation

Use the wildcard symbol (*) to retrieve keywords with multiple word endings.
Example: therap* will retrieve the words therapy, therapies, therapist, therapists, therapeutic, and so on.

Quotation Marks

Use quotations marks around more than 1 keyword to search for a phrase.
Example: Using quotation marks around “prostate cancer” will retrieve results that have that exact phrase.

Proximity Operator

To search for keywords that are near to one another, place the keywords in quotations and add a ~n after. Replace n with a number to set the maximum number of words the keywords can be apart. The keywords may appear in any order.
Example: “animal therapy”~3 will retrieve the phrase animal therapy, as well as animal assisted therapy, animal or music therapy, therapy animal, and so on.

Refining Your Search

Use the menu on the left-hand side to limit your search. You can limit by specific body systems, diseases, and population, as well as by CADTH product type and date last updated.

Sorting Search Results

Results are sorted by Last Updated by default. You can switch to sort by Relevance. Search relevance results is the measure of accuracy of the relationship between your search terms and the search results.

Saving Your Search

You can save your search by entering your search terms and setting the filters located on the left side if required. Click on the Search button to execute the search. Click on the Save Search button in the Current Filters menu and create a label for your search results. Note: You must be logged in to your My CADTH account to save and access your saved searches.

Exporting Search Results

To export the results of a search, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Download results as CSV.