Filters are used as additional search fields that allow you to rapidly select articles with certain characteristics such as publication date or article type. Because they are very rigorous there is a risk that certain useful articles are not shown in the search results. It is therefore wise to limit the use of filters as much as possible.
Filters can for example be used to find articles that are published within the last 10 years, or to get an overview of the number of systematic reviews that are written on a certain subject.
When performing a systematic search in PubMed chances are that you are left with a large number of articles. To further specify your search you can use a number of the filters on the left side of the search results screen.
Limit yourself to the use of the filters 'systematic review', 'date' and 'language'. It is not known how the other filters search, which might mean that you miss out on relevant results.
Do not use the filter 'free full-text', as PubMed only contains the full text of a select number of articles. Usually when finding a possibly useful article there are other ways of accessing the full text. You can for example copy and paste the title of the article in Google Scholar or HANquest. Through these methods you can usually find the full text. For more information see the next step.
