Learning by Practice
This is about one such workshop that I attended on Literature search on PubMed ...at UCMS
Mnemonics to Boolean operators.
Use of AND operator
for ‘terms search’ will lead to less results while use of OR operator will lead
to more results. Isn't it interesting for example
Search
Query Items found
(Health) AND Literacy 5716
(Health) NOT Literacy 2348666
(Health) OR Literacy 2357336
Secondly, use of MESH, the National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary thesaurus. It consists of
sets of terms naming descriptors in a hierarchical structure that permits
searching at various levels of specificity.
For
example for the same query 'Health
Literacy'. MESH provide the definition of Health Literacy - 'Degree to which individuals have the
capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and
services needed to make appropriate health decisions.' The year in which
this term was introduced i.e. in this case Health Literacy was introduced
in the year 2010.
It
further lists the subheadings just
like: organization and administration, trends, utilization and so on.
The search can be restricted to MeSH Major
Topic and one can exclude MeSH terms found below particular term in the MeSH
hierarchy.
I
am listing one such Tree structure for the Entry Terms: Literacy, Health:
Health Literacy
Lest
I forget again I thought let me put ‘learning to practice’ about the use
of operators and MESH more will follow later .
I
am thankful to Dr. Navjeevan Singh, Professor, Pathology, UCMS and PubMed
Expert Searcher Ms. Vasumathi Sriganesh from QMed Knowldge foundation for providing me
the opportunity to attend this workshop on Sunday
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Thank you Sangeeta! Please practice what you learned and share how the program helped in specific contexts!
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