To make sure you are not missing useful articles that can help you answer your PICO question, it is important to make sure you have found all the relevant search terms for your topic.
Some ways to "mine" for search terms include:
You can "mine" for keywords in the title and abstract of a relevant article.
For example, in the abstract of this article, you can identify additional keywords to add to your PICO chart, such as:
P: older adults
I: fall prevention strategies
MeSH stands for Medical Subject Headings. MeSH is the controlled vocabulary of terms used to describe each article in PubMed.
As described by the National Library of Medicine: "MeSH contains approximately 26 thousand terms and is updated annually to reflect changes in medicine and medical terminology. MeSH terms are arranged hierarchically by subject categories with more specific terms arranged beneath broader terms."
Mining MeSH Terms with the MeSH Database:You can search for MeSH terms using the MeSH Database. You can find the MeSH Database on the PubMed homepage |
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In the MeSH Database, you can enter a keyword and it will try to match it to relevant MeSH terms. When clicking on a term, you can see how it fits into the MeSH hierarchy. |
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Mining MeSH Terms from Articles: You can also find MeSH terms in the articles from your initial PubMed search by scrolling to the end of each article to the MeSH term section, which lists the MeSH terms assigned to that article. Click on each term to learn more about it. |
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When you find relevant MeSH terms in either the MeSH Browser or in an article on PubMed, you can add them to your PICO chart.
| For example, here you may want to add "Accident Falls / prevention & control" to the Intervention column. Be sure to clearly note in brackets that the term is from MeSH. That will be important when we construct our final search. |
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Once you have added Keywords and MeSH terms to your PICO chart, you can proceed to enter your final search into the PubMed Advanced Search Builder.
