Library of the Health Sciences
Peoria

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

• MEDLINE uses MeSH as its controlled vocabulary for indexing database articles.

• 6-15 subject headings are assigned per article, with up to 3 assigned for major emphasis of the article.

• MeSH is updated annually to reflect current usage.

• MeSH allows for more precise subject searching. Articles are indexed to the most specific term available.

• MEDLINE allows users to "explode" a category of terms from the MeSH TREES (MeSH terms in a hierarchy from general to specific) to retrieve all of the articles on the general term and all of the specific terms listed underneath. Terms are automatically exploded in PubMed unless you change the default.

Longitudinal Studies if EXPLODED would include:

Follow-up Studies Prospective Studies

Cohort Studies if EXPLODED would include:

Longitudinal Studies Follow-up Studies Prospective Studies

• MeSH definitions, history, and TREES can be found in the MeSH Database
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=mesh.

• Using MeSH to search MEDLINE allows the searcher to apply subheadings, limits, add major emphasis, and "explode" to include more specific terms grouped under a broader heading.

• Subheadings are terms which cover general, frequently discussed aspects of a subject (e.g. diagnosis, etiology, surgery, therapy). Subheadings are combined with MeSH terms to indicate a specific focus.
  

  Example: ASPIRIN/adverse effects

• Check tags are descriptors used for commonly occurring concepts (e.g., human, animal, female, male, infant, child, adult, aged).

• Publication Type is a modifier available for publication types such as Randomized Controlled Trial, Meta-Analysis, and Review.

  ** Note: Publication Type [PT] is always singular (Practice Guideline) while MeSH terms are always plural (Practice Guidelines). [PT] indicates the report in the article is a Practice Guideline. An article which has been indexed with the MeSH term Practice Guidelines is an article about this methodology or process. Some searchers, in order to be as comprehensive as possible, will use the strategy: Practice Guideline [PT] OR Practice Guidelines [MeSH].

• An advantage of MeSH is that a single term has been used to represent a particular concept no matter how it was referred to in the original article.

• An excellent discussion of the use of MeSH in MEDLINE searching may be found in the article:
  Lowe HJ. Understanding the Medical Subject Heading Vocabulary to Perform Literature Searches. JAMA 1994 Apr 13;271(14):1103-8.

Useful Terms for EBM MEDLINE Searches

This page is maintained at www.uic.edu/depts/lib/lhsp/resources/ebm.shtml by Jo Dorsch, UIC Library of the Health Sciences-Peoria. Please send comments to Jo Dorsch jod@uic.edu.

Last updated: Wednesday, 23-Mar-2005 13:20:00 CST