Thread by @carrieprice78

Here's a #SearchAndRescue tip of the day!

Are you putting together a #SystematicReview search?

If you use a subject heading (aka controlled vocabulary, thesaurus term), use the same term as a keyword too.

It seems redundant, but it's not. Let's look at an example:

I looked up the term Guillain-Barre Syndrome in the MeSH database, which is MEDLINE's controlled vocabulary:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/

There's a term for Guillain-Barre Syndrome, here, take a look:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/68020275

When we search with it in PubMed, we get over 5,800 results:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?sort=date&ter…

But wait, that's only pulling results that have this exact subject heading! We need to add a keyword to be more comprehensive.

We should add additional keywords with OR. [tw] is my field tag of choice.

"Guillain-Barre Syndrome"[Mesh] OR "guillain barre syndrome"[tw]

Case doesn't matter!

You can read more about field tags here -- note that these is specific to PubMed, and every database or platform is different.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/help/#search-t…

Whoa! Look at those results!

11,545 results. That's because we asked the database to look in subject headings AND other places like title, abstract, and metadata.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22Guill…

Typically, we'd add more keywords and a second or third concept, based on the topic.

It's important to use both a subject heading, if one exists, and additional keywords, even if it seems redundant.

The more you know!/