Searching Embase: Introduction to Embase

What is Embase?

• Embase is provided by Elsevier and includes literature in the MEDLINE database from the National Library of Medicine, in addition to over 3,000 other journals and over 15,000 conferences.
• It contains journal articles, conference papers and abstracts and reports in biomedicine dating back to 1947.  
• Embase has advanced indexing of drug literature to enable detailed searches on any drug study question or aspect of drug information.  
• Embase is indexed using Emtree subject headings, similar to the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms in PubMed to help you find all the relevant articles on a topic.

Learn more about Embase 

• You can learn more about Embase by exploring the search options provided on the Embase homepage. 
• Embase also has video tutorials on how to use the database and a Quick User Guide to search options and database navigation. 

Search for drug/pharmacy topics and medical devices:

Embase has strong coverage of pharmacy, pharmaceutical, and pharmacological research.  The subject headings system in Embase (Emtree) inclused generic names for drugs and chemicals and  their trade names and laboratory/research codes, along with thousands of terms for  medical devices. As of 2023, there are almost 98,000 preferred terms in Emtree with over 500,000 synonyms and 64 drug subheadings. 

Search for conference literature:

Embase includes abstracts and papers from biomedical, drug and medical device conferences back to 2009. As of 2024, Embase includes over 6 million conference abstracts, papers, and reviews from over 15,000 conferences.

Conduct comprehensive literature searches or systematic reviews:

Use Embase alongside PubMed for in-depth, literature-based research on biomedical topics. Embase is an ideal complement to PubMed for literature searches of more than one database. There are over 3,000 journals that are unique to Embase and the detailed indexing of citation records means even papers also in other databases may be easier to find in Embase. 

Quickly answer interventional questions: 

The Embase PICO search makes it easier to quickly find the most relevant studies that match your question's Patient Population, Intervention, any Comparison Intervention, and Outcomes. This search tool will help you identify the best search terms and synonyms for each PICO element and create a detailed search strategy to find the primary and secondary literature. 

Embase is a subscription resource, so you need to access it via the UNC Libraries' link. There is a link to Embase on the Health Sciences Library's webpage in the "Research Databases" box. Select Embase on the HSL page, or on other UNC Libraries pages. Alternatively, you can save the UNC Libraries' link to Embase: http://login.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=http://www.embase.com/

All articles in Embase will have a "Find @ UNC" button to connect you to the full-text PDF. When the article is not available online in the UNC Libraries collections, the "Find @ UNC" button links to a page with options to look for a print copy in the library catalog or to request the article via Interlibrary Loan.

As of June 2021, you must have an Elsevier account to bulk export citations/search results from Embase. If you are signed in to your free Elsevier account the option to export citations will be available after you run any search. if you are not signed in or do not have an account, you will be asked to sign in before you can export citation data. 

To create an Elsevier account, select "Sign in" button in the top right corner of the window. 

In the next window, type in your preferred email address (this does not have to be your UNC email address) and select "Continue." 

Next, fill out the form with your First Name (i.e., "Given Name") and Last Name (i.e., "Family Name") and a password with the required security criteria. Select "Register" when you have finished filling out the form. You will be redirected to Embase and automatically signed in to your new Elsevier account.

If you ever get signed out of your Elsevier account while using Embase, you can select "Sign in" to log in again. 

1. Access Embase via the Health Sciences Library: Enter Embase from the UNC Health Sciences Library website for full access to this paid resource. 
2. Find@UNC: Use the blue Find @ UNC link to access article PDFs for free, for anyone with a UNC ONYEN. 
3. Result Filter: Use filters on the left side of the search results page to quickly limit the number of articles in your results and exclude irrelevant things. 
4. Search Pages: Use the various search pages to create specific types of searches, including a PICO framework formatted search (PICO), a search for pharmacovigilance literature (PV Wizard), or searches for specific types of drug research (Drug), disease state literature (Disease), or medical devices (Device). You can also create searches for a specific citation (Article) or by a certain author (Authors) and run other complex searches on the advanced search page (Advanced). 
5. Embase/Elsevier Account: Save results in Embase and set up custom options by clicking Login and setting up an individual account with a username and password. As of June 2021, you must have an Elsevier account to export data from Embase. For more information, check out our instructions for creating an Elsevier account. 
6. Save your Search Results: Export all or some of your found citations search strategies by clicking the checkboxes to the right of the citation and then clicking Export. 
7. Emtree Thesaurus: Access the Emtree thesaurus of subject headings (similar to MeSH in PubMed), in the top menu on the search and results page in Embase, to look up terms for subject headings to make your searches more precise. 
8. Ask Us: Contact the HSL for assistance with any of these topics or other aspects of searching Embase.