Tip #60: Controlled vocabulary field codes and their discontents in EBSCOhost APA PsycInfo
The APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms is an essential indexing tool that is also an indispensable searching tool. That said, its utility in systematic searching is highly dependent on interface.
Ovid APA PsycInfo
In Ovid APA PsycInfo, per the Ovid Database Guide, the following searchable field codes for APA Thesaurus terms are available:
SH: Subject Headings [Phrase Indexed]
The Subject Headings (SH) field contains the Subject Headings (also known as "descriptors" or "index terms") from the American Psychological Association's Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms. Indexers at the APA use the terms to describe the topic or content of a document.
HW: Heading Word [Word Indexed]
The Heading Word (HW) index allows you to retrieve every subject heading that includes a particular word by searching a single word in the Subject Heading (SH) field.
In addition, there is a MeSH field in APA PsycInfo that can be searched using the following field codes:
MH Mesh [Phrase Indexed]
The Mesh (MH) field contains the Medical Subject Headings as assigned by PubMed. The MeSH headings that appear in Medline database records are also provided in the APA PsycInfo® records.
MF: Mesh Word [Word Indexed]
MeSH Word (MF) The MeSH Word (MF) index allows you to retrieve every Medical Subject Headings as assigned by PubMed that includes a particular word by searching a single word in the MeSH (MH) field.
The default "unqualified" search, using the field code MP, includes both HW and MF.
This flexibility enables searchers to explicitly choose which subject headings to include when constructing complex queries
EBSCOhost APA PsycInfo
Unfortunately, field codes in EBSCOhost APA PsycInfo are considerably less conducive to effective systematic searches.
Per the EBSCO Database Help Files (each database now has a downloadable PDF, so APA PsycInfo's can be found at that link), the following are the searchable field codes for subject headings:
To search both APA Thesaurus terms and MeSH terms for exact phrases:
DE: Subject [Phrase Indexed]
Performs an exact search for terms indexed as subject headings (also called indexed terms, or descriptors).
To search APA Thesaurus terms, MeSH terms, and author keywords (word indexed, not phrase):
SU: Subjects [Word Indexed]
Performs a keyword search for a records keywords and subject headings (also called indexed terms, or descriptors).
To search both APA Thesaurus terms and MeSH terms tagged as major concepts for exact phrases:
MM: Major Concepts [Phrase Indexed]
Performs an exact search for terms indexed as major subjects.
To search both APA Thesaurus terms and MeSH terms tagged as major concepts (word indexed, not phrase):
MJ: Word in Major Subject Heading [Word Indexed]
Performs a keyword search of terms indexed as major subject headings.
To search only MeSH terms (word indexed, not phrase):
MA: MeSH Subject Heading [Word Indexed]
Performs a keyword search of terms indexed as MeSH headings.
There are zero field codes that search exclusively in the Subjects field associated with the APA Thesaurus, and no field codes that perform an exact phrase search in either MeSH or APA subject headings. (On top of that, the MeSH in APA PsycInfo isn't guaranteed to mirror exactly what you'd see in MEDLINE. See Tip #61: Mismatched MeSH in EBSCOhost APA PsycInfo for details!)
Oh yeah? Prove it.
Here's a simple test. A search for DE "Alcoholism" yields all three of these records:
Citation 1: Smoking and alcoholism dual addiction dissemination model analysis with optimal control theory and cost-effectiveness. (link is DOI, not database record)
In Citation 1, Alcoholism appears in the APA Subjects field as a major heading and in the MeSH field as a standard heading:
Citation 3: Relationship between alcohol drinking and aspartate aminotransferase: Alanine aminotransferase (AST:ALT) ration, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), and apoliproprotein A1 and B in the U.S. population. (link is DOI, not database record)
In Citation 3, Alcoholism appears only in the APA Subjects field as a major heading:
DE "alcoholism" (alcoholism, phrase indexed, appears as a heading in either APA or MeSH or both): Citation 1, Citation 2, and Citation 3
SU "alcoholism" (alcoholism, word indexed, appears as a heading in either APA or MeSH or both): Citation 1, Citation 2, and Citation 3
MM "alcoholism" (alcoholism, phrase indexed, appears as a major heading in either APA or MeSH or both): Citation 1 and Citation 3
MJ "alcoholism" (alcoholism, word indexed, appears as a major heading in either APA or MeSH or both): Citation 1 and Citation 3
MA "alcoholism" (alcoholism, word indexed, appears as a heading in MeSH): Citation 1 and Citation 2
Ok, ok, I get it. Can you give me an example of how this plays out in real searches?
Let's say you're doing a systematic search and want to find all the records in APA PsycInfo that include the APA Thesaurus term Alcoholism.
Do you have EBSCOhost APA PsycInfo? You construct this as: DE "alcoholism"
Do you have Ovid APA PsycInfo? You construct this as: Alcoholism/
You'd expect to get pretty much the same numbers from the same database but on different platforms, right? NOPE.
A test of these two searches in September 2025 yielded the following:
DE "alcoholism" 47,290 results vs. Alcoholism/ 31,612 results
That's because EBSCOhost's DE "alcoholism" searches for the heading in either APA or MeSH subjects, while Ovid's Alcoholism/ searches only the APA subjects.
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