Search Help
Getting Started
To search all AAFP Web sites, type a few descriptive words in the search box, and press enter or click search. You will see a results page with a list of items related to your search terms. The most relevant search results appear at the top of the page.
- Using only one term may return a large number of results, use additional terms to help qualify the search (e.g. asthma and steroids).
- Phrase searching is achieved by placing the phrase within quotation marks.
Expanding your search
Common words:
Common words, such as "where," "how," "and," "on," etc. are excluded from search results because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. To include a common word in your search enter a plus sign ("+") in front of it (e.g. tips on prevention, tips +on prevention).
Word exclusion:
If your search term has more than one meaning, you can focus your search by adding a minus sign ("-") in front of words related to the meaning you want to avoid. Make sure you include a space before the minus sign. You can daisy chain a list of words you want to exclude (e.g. diabetes -type1).
Phrase searches:
Search for an exact phrase or name by enclosing the phrase in quotation marks. Only documents that include the exact phrase you entered will be returned.
Common words, such as "where," "how," "and," "on," etc. are excluded from search results because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. To include a common word in your search enter a plus sign ("+") in front of it (e.g. tips on prevention, tips +on prevention).
Word exclusion:
If your search term has more than one meaning, you can focus your search by adding a minus sign ("-") in front of words related to the meaning you want to avoid. Make sure you include a space before the minus sign. You can daisy chain a list of words you want to exclude (e.g. diabetes -type1).
Phrase searches:
Search for an exact phrase or name by enclosing the phrase in quotation marks. Only documents that include the exact phrase you entered will be returned.
Search by Section (or site)
American Family Physician
-- Search American Family Physician - The peer reviewed clinical journal of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Family Practice Management
-- Search Family Practice Management - The practice management journal of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Patient Education
-- Search Patient Education Material from AAFP's Patient Education Web site, familydoctor.org.
Policies, Clinical and Immunization Recommendations
-- Search official AAFP Policies, Clinical and Immunization Recommendations from AAFP.
Advanced Search Operators
AAFP search supports several advanced operators, which are query words that restrict your search to a smaller set of documents. When you enter your search query, do not add a space between the search operator and the search terms. The table describes the following search operators:
| Search Operator | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| site: | Restricts search to a specific AAFP Web site. | site:aafp.org diabetes (returns results that contain diabetes from aafp.org) |
| filetype: | Restricts search to specific file types such as Excel spreadsheets (xls), PDF files (pdf), or Word documents (doc). | filetype:pdf diabetes (returns PDF files that contain diabetes) |
| intitle: | Restricts search to documents that contain the search word(s) in their title. | intitle:advocacy (returns results that contain advocacy in the title) |
| inurl: | Restricts search to documents that contain the search word in the URL.This operator works on words, not URL components such as punctuation. Slashes (/), for example, are ignored. | inurl:news-now (returns results that contain news-now in the web address) |
