Medical Subject Headings

Overview

Example of a MeSH tree structure

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a comprehensive controlled vocabulary used for indexing journal articles and books in the life sciences. It serves as a thesaurus that facilitates searching by providing a consistent way to retrieve information that may use different terminology for the same concepts.

History

MeSH was first published in 1960 by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) in the United States. It was developed to improve the indexing of articles in the Index Medicus, a comprehensive index of medical scientific journal articles.

Structure

MeSH is organized in a hierarchical structure known as a "tree". Each descriptor in MeSH is assigned a unique identifier and is placed in one or more locations in the hierarchy. This allows for searching at various levels of specificity.

Descriptors

Descriptors are the main headings in MeSH. They represent concepts and are used to index articles. Each descriptor can have multiple entry terms, which are synonyms or closely related terms.

Qualifiers

Qualifiers, also known as subheadings, are used to refine the meaning of a descriptor. They allow for more specific indexing and searching. For example, the descriptor "Diabetes Mellitus" can be combined with the qualifier "therapy" to find articles specifically about the treatment of diabetes.

Supplementary Concept Records

Supplementary Concept Records (SCRs) include additional information about substances, diseases, and other concepts that are not included as main headings. These records are often used for chemicals and drugs.

Usage

MeSH is used by the NLM to index articles for the MEDLINE/PubMed database. It is also used by other databases and libraries around the world. Researchers and librarians use MeSH to perform precise searches in biomedical literature.

Updates

MeSH is updated annually to reflect changes in terminology and the introduction of new concepts. The updates are based on input from the scientific community and changes in the field of medicine.

Related pages

• PubMed
• Index Medicus
• National Library of Medicine
• Controlled vocabulary