PMID

PMID is an acronym for PubMed Identifier which is a unique number assigned to PubMed citations of health science academic journal articles that are indexed by PubMed. It is used similarly to the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) for books.

As of 2005, there are roughly between 15-16 million numbers in use, starting from PMID 1, and about 1 million new numbers are added each year.

Usage of the PMID

At PubMed

Searching PubMed using the PMID

By using the PMID as a search argument at PubMed (http://pubmed.gov/), the relevant abstract will be displayed by PubMed.

Example: to retrieve PMID 12748199 at PubMed:

Go to http://pubmed.gov/

Enter 12748199 in the search box.

Notes:

• The text 'PMID' itself should not be included in the search.
• '[PMID]' or '[uid]' are the search field tags for the PMID in the PubMed search query.
• To search in combination with other terms, one must enter the search field tag, e.g., smith [au] AND (10403340 [uid] OR vaccines [mh]).
• Multiple PMIDs in one search will yield all abstracts (it is interpreted as an OR operation).

Creating links to articles at PubMed using the PMID

To link to the citation at PubMed with PMID 12748199, either of the following links can be inserted on a webpage:

http://pubmed.gov/9718051
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9718051

Other methods are available to link to different versions or information associated with a specific citation.

At Google

Frequently, searching Google with the PMID with retrieve the article. Adding the text 'PMID' may help. An example is entering 'PMID 971805' at Google which gives the following result:

http://www.google.com/search?q=PMID%3A+9718051

At pmid.us

http://pmid.us/ can be used to create links to PubMed citation. An example using the citation with PMID 12748199 is:

http://pmid.us/9718051

See also

• Digital object identifier (DOI)
• International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)