Embase - Medline - PsycInfo OVID en: Proximity/Adjacency

The ADJ operator allows you to search for words that appear close to each other within a specified number of words  in any order in your search result. 
For example, you can specify that patient should be near relationship
In the example, adj5 is used, This search retrieves results with maximum 4 words between patient and relationship.

ADJ stands for Adjacency, spaces are counted between words - hence the number you write minus 1.

You can enter a number up to 99 = 98 words between search terms.
This only works in free text searching!

Tip: sexual adj1 abuse finds results where the words sexual and abuse are listed in any order.

The proximity operator ADJ can also be used on entire search sets, but they must consist entirely of free text searches.
In the following, the words from search 7 must be close to the words from search 11 with a maximum of 2 words in between, note that small words such as ‘or’ ‘and’ and similar are also counted.

The search will then be ‘translated’ so that search 12 will look like this.