How to search a PICO question in PubMed (Advanced Search)

Evidence-Based Practice Case Scenario. Step 1: The question: In a 30-year-old male patient diagnosed with depression, is St. John's Wort as effective as SSRIs at reducing depressive symptoms?
Identify best search terms for each PICO concept:
P: Depressive disorder [MeSH searched as keyword] AND
I: Serotonin uptake inhibitors [MeSH searched as keyword] AND
C: (Hypericum [MeSH searched as keyword] OR St. John's Wort)
O: Desired outcome is efficacy, but this term is not part of the search strategy because it is already implied in the search.
Step 2: Use PubMed Advanced search builder to string these terms together with AND (Enter the OR terms in the same line - which is the third line in this demo, and leave the Boolean operator on the left of the search builder as AND) Click search.
Step 3: Apply filters if desired, such as: Language: English, Species: Humans, Article types: Meta Analysis, Systematic Review [subset]