How to perform a foreground question?
Searching with:
- MeSHes is one way to search Medline, it is the optimal choice in regular narrative literature search as it retrieves articles discussing that particular concept.
- keywords,is a second way, this searches for all the occurrences of that particular word(s) as it/they appear(s) in the indexed part of the Medline records (citation, abstract, keywords set by the author(s), and Meshs). This does not necessarily guarantee this and as a result many irrelevant records are retrieved while many relevant ones are missed. A combination of the above methods should be performed in most cases to have a comprehensive literature search.
For example, if you are looking for "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome", and you search Medline(OVID) for AIDS as a keyword, irrelevant articles such as "Technical aids to patients with spinal cord injuries" will be retrieved. Additionally, articles about AIDS syndrome that do not mention AIDS in its abbreviated form in the title or abstract, are missed.
When using keywords, "OR" all synonyms, variant spellings, singular, plural, adjectival, British, American, and abbreviated forms where applicable, and use truncation to ensure comprehensive retrieval.
3.Meshes and keywords, that is the combination of both is a third way that gives comprehensive results.
If not satisfied, search other databases such as Embase, Cinahl, Cochrane, etc. There is some overlap among them, but each has its unique results.
Remember: There is no one correct way to do all searches!
When using keywords, "OR" all synonyms, variant spellings, singular, plural, adjectival, British, American, and abbreviated forms where applicable, and use truncation to ensure comprehensive retrieval.
