UX Caucus Database Tips

What is a Subheading? Subheadings allow searchers to improve the precision of a search that uses controlled vocabulary by further focusing on a narrower aspect of the topic. Here's an example of how subheadings (or qualifiers) are displayed for an indexed article in PubMed. Subheadings (highlighted in red) appear to the right of a slash following the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH). How to Use Subheadings in PubMed To build a PubMed search using subheadings, you have a few different options depending on the type of search you need. You can start from the MeSH database to build a search using Medical Subject Headings with subheadings applied. Find the MeSH term of interest, then from the record page you can select various subheadings that are relevant to that topic, and click "Add to search builder" to create the search. Click "Search PubMed" to run your search.     In the PubMed searches below, you'll see that the search with the " surgery " subhe...

by Andy Hickner Like MEDLINE and Embase, CINAHL's thesaurus includes optional subheadings. The syntax is as follows: MW "[2-letter subheading abbreviation]". For example, the syntax for the floating subheading "prevention and control" is MW "PC" (you can substitute MJ if for some reason you want to search for this subheading only in combination with a major heading). Here's what this might look like in a search for articles about prevention of catheter-associated urinary tract infection: The floating subheading is line S8, combined with equivalent keywords in S10, and finally combined with CAUTI elements in S11. Further information:  Advanced Searching with CINAHL® Subject Headings . Update: A reader asked me where to find the list of available subheadings. As usual with EBSCOhost, it is incredibly difficult to locate the CINAHL Database Information, so I am copy-pasting the list here: Code   Subheading   AB   Abnormalities   AM   Administration  ...