The PubMed Database: The MeSH Search
- THE MeSH SEARCH -
The MeSH (Medical Subject Heading) search helps you use official medical subject headings instead of keywords to build a search. Using the official medical subject headings can significantly boost the accuracy of your searches and the quality of your search results so it's well worth the effort to use it.
Click the MeSH Database link on the main PubMed screen in the bottom right-hand corner.
Video tutorial (8:35) PubMed MeSH Search.
SETTING UP A MeSH SEARCH
- BUILDING A MeSH SEARCH -
A. STEP ONE
Type just your first keyword or phrase into the MeSH Database search box. You will be building a search bit by bit. Your keyword or phrase may find just one subject heading or a list of them. In this example, we typed in bypass surgery, clicked Search, and got a match with one subject heading.
1. Now we can see that the official medical subject heading is not bypass surgery but coronary artery bypass. Already we are refining our search.
2. We also can see all the official subheadings for that subject.
3. Click on a subheading to choose it. Here we choose nursing.
4. Next, click the Add to search builder button found on the right side of the screen.
B. STEP TWO
Now we are looking for our second subject heading to combine with the first one. Going up to the MeSH Database search box we delete our previous keywords, type in rehabilitation, and click Search.
This time, we get a list of subject headings (only the first 3 shown below) to do with various types of rehabilitation. We click on the first one, rehabilitation.
5. On the next screen, we click the Add to search builder button to add rehabilitation to our search. AND is the default command (also known as a Boolean operator; here's a brief video tutorial, Using Boolean Operators), but you can choose OR or NOT as needed.
6. Finally, we click the Search PubMed button to run the search we built.
TO RUN ANOTHER MeSH SEARCH
- TO START OVER -
To run another MeSH search, click the PubMed logo, then find the MeSH Database link shown above.
- HINT -
Once you run a MeSH search you can use PubMed's filters to further narrow your search results. See the Basic Search section of this guide for further information about them.
PRACTICE SEARCHES
- TRY THESE MeSH SEARCHES -
- vaccination - subheading nursing AND child
- geriatric nursing AND hospice care
- neoplasms - subheading nursing AND depression
- cannabis OR medical marijuana AND glaucoma
- alkaloids NOT caffeine AND depression