UNDERSTANDING AND USING THE MEDICAL SUBJECT-HEADINGS (MESH) VOCABULARY TO PERFORM LITERATURE SEARCHES

The United States National Library of Medicine's (NLM) MEDLINE databas e is the largest and most widely used medical bibliographic database. MEDLINE is manually indexed with NLM's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) vocabulary. Using MeSH, a searcher can potentially create powerful an d unambiguous MEDLINE queries. This article reviews the structure and use of MeSH, directed toward the nonexpert, and outlines how MeSH may help resolve a number of common difficulties encountered when searchin g MEDLINE. The increasing importance of the MEDLINE database as an inf ormation resource and the trend toward individuals performing their ow n bibliographic searches makes it crucial that health care professiona ls become familiar with MeSH.