NUR152 - EBP Research Guide

• MeSH stands for Medical Subject Headings. 
• Controlled vocabulary thesaurus created and maintained by

• Arranged in both an alphabetic and a hierarchical structure

• Searches with MeSh terms will retreive more relevant and consistent results than regular keywords
  .

  • Examples:

    Common terms	MeSH terms
    depression	depressive disorder
    chewing	mastication
    St. John's wort	hypericum

Common terms vs. MeSH

Compare the database search results in

Look at the Search Results (the numbers of articles and citations retrieved.

• You may combine common and MeSH terms with OR (in capital letters) in a single search field. Watch the tutorial videos below. OR is one of Boolean Search Operators.

1. Go to 

2. Enter a keyword or phrase.

3. Read the description(s) and identify the relevant MeSH term.

4. You should use both common and MeSh term connected with "OR" when conducting database searches*.