MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) Terms | |
● | Denoted by a trailing slash, e.g. Accidental Falls/ |
● | The complete set of MeSH terms can be searched at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/ |
● | Usual to put the explode operator beforehand, telling the database that you want articles with the given term as well as terms in relevant sub-categories, e.g. exp Accidental Falls/ |
● | Those for the EMBASE database (“EMTREE”) include all of the MeSH terms |
● | Look at terms assigned to relevant articles which you already have |
Free-text terms | |
● | Useful as there may not be MeSH term(s) relevant to the area of interest (also newer articles may not yet have been indexed with MeSH terms) |
● | Denoted with double-quotation marks, a full stop and then the fields of interest, e.g. “falls”.ti,ab searches for this word in the title and abstract of all articles |
● | Worth brainstorming synonyms (e.g. “peripheral neuropathy”, “peripheral sensory loss”) and also including alternative spellings (“haemoglobin”, ”hemoglobin” etc.) |