Hello, my name is Charlotte Beyer, and I’m the instruction and reference librarian for
the Boxer Library. Today I’m going to show you how to find MeSH terms, otherwise known
as Medical Subject Headings, in PubMed. If you’re ready, let’s get started. First
of all, what is MeSH? MeSH stands for Medical Subject Headings, and they are created and
maintained by the National Library of Medicine for the purpose of grouping terms into concepts,
which I’m going to explain in a minute. Why should we look for one concept for multiple
words? As an example, you can put “high blood pressure” in as a search term, but
what if someone used “high blood pressures” instead of “high blood pressure”? Well,
if you used a MeSH term, you would use “hypertension,” and that would search both terms at once.
Same example: cancer. You can search cancer, cancers, or tumors can also be the search
terms that you might want to use. To search cancer, tumor, and tumors, all you have to
do for MeSH is put in one term, called “neoplasm” in the MeSH database, and you’ll be able
to search all those terms at once. “Heart attack” has another word as well in the
MeSH database. It’s called “myocardial infarction.” So you can see that MeSH is
one way to help you be able to enter less terms but get more results. So the first step
to using MeSH is to get to the library homepage. You can get to the library homepage if you’re
at the university’s homepage by hovering over Academic Resources and then clicking
on the Boxer Library link. Once you’re at the library homepage, you’re going to look
under Library Resources and click on the PubMed link. Next, you’re going to log in with
your HelixNet username and password. This should be the same username and password that
you use to log onto the computers while on campus. Once you’re at the PubMed homepage,
the next step is you can get to MeSH one of two ways. The first way is, you can look under
More Resources and then click on the “MeSH Database” link. Another way that you can
do this is, if you’re at the PubMed homepage, click on the dropdown menu next to the search
box, and then just select MeSH. So now as an example, I’m going to type in the word
“allergy.” So now that I’ve typed in the word “allergy,” I’m just going to
click Search. So now, what you’re going to see is, you will see the results for your
MeSH search. So now to determine which MeSH term is right for us, we’re going to have
to read the definition which is below the MeSH terms it came up with. So the first one
you might think is “allergy,” but it says “Allergy and Immunology,” and it says,
“A medical specialty concerned with the hypersensitivity of the individual to foreign
substances and protection from the resultant infection or disorder.” So this is really
the specialty, so this is not exactly what we want. So we look at the second one. It
says, “Hypersensitivity: altered reactivity to an antigen, which can result in pathologic
reactions upon subsequent exposure to that particular antigen. So that is the MeSH term
that we would like. So now I’m just going to click on the MeSH term to see some more
about this particular term. So this is a detailed record for the MeSH term. So it’s going
to give you a few things. The first thing it’s going to give you is the actual MeSH
term, which is hypersensitivity. Below that is going to be a definition. And this obviously
helped us determine that this is the right MeSH term. So now below that, there’s going
to be a few different items that are going to help you when you are searching. First
is subheadings, which I’m going to get to in a minute. Right now we’re going to skip
down to entry terms. Now, entry terms are what people enter to get this MeSH term. So
as an example, if you use the MeSH term, you will be searching articles not only that have
“allergy,” but “hypersensitivities,” “allergy,” “allergies,” “allergic
reaction,” “allergic reactions,” “reaction, allergic,” and “reactions, allergic.”
So you can see that there’s all these different terms. So you’re using one term and you’re
searching all this information at once. Instead of having to do all those specific searches — you
know, say you were doing five or six searches with these different terms — now you can use
one term and search the information all at once. Much more efficient. And below this
is also how it falls in, because MeSH is actually a controlled vocabulary, so there is a structure
to the language. So it’s underneath “Immune System Diseases” and then it goes down to
even “Drug Hypersensitivity,” “Environmental Illness,” things like that. A lot of these
MeSH terms are broad topics. Subheadings are a way to focus that topic on something specific.
As an example, are you looking for information on hypersensitivity related to genetics? Are
you looking for hypersensitivity related to drug therapy, or analysis, or rehabilitation,
surgery, therapy, etc. So this is a way for you to specify what type of information you’re
looking for. Just be careful when using too many subheadings because you can limit yourself
into a corner, which is not a wonderful thing. So what I would do is, say I’m looking for
hypersensitivity as related to diet therapy. So all I have to do is click on “diet therapy,”
next to it. So now, if I say I want to search PubMed with this information, all I have to
do is click on “Add to search builder,” and you’re going to see it says “Hypersensitivity/diet
therapy” and “MeSH.” So now all I have to do is click on “Search PubMed,” and
when I search PubMed, you’re going to see that I have some articles here. Now it’s
very important to use that “Add to search builder” function because it has to be formatted
in such a way that PubMed understands it. PubMed used to be a lot harder to search,
but it’s gotten a lot better over the years. But there are some little picky things that
it needs, so to save yourself a lot of time, just use that “Add to search builder.”
So now, say we click on an article, and now we scroll down to where this says “Publication
Types, MeSH Terms.” Usually you’re going to see something related to hypersensitivity
and diet therapy. So you can see it says “Milk Hypersensitivity/diet therapy.” So now these
are pulling articles with that specific subheading and MeSH term. So basically that’s the process
on how to use MeSH terms. If you have any other questions, feel free to email the librarians
at eresources@rosalindfranklin.edu. This concludes our presentation for today. Thanks for watching.