Embase - Medline - PsycInfo OVID en: Truncation

Truncation and Masking (wildcard) are very useful in free text search

* and $ are used as wildcards when truncating, i.e. substituting one, more or no letters in a search term.
Educat* captures words and concepts containing educat, i.e. education, educations, educating, educated, etc.

When using $, you can specify the maximum number of letters after the root with a number.
Brand$3 captures brand, branding and brands, but not brandmand or brandhane.

? is used as a wildcard to replace one or no letters in a keyword, either inside the word or at the end of the word.
An?esthesia captures both anaesthesia and anaesthesia.

# is used to capture one and only one letter.
wom#n captures both women and woman

Please note that you cannot use truncation (*) and wild card (?) in the same word.
If you search for p?ediatric*, it would be equivalent to searching for p*