The document details the features and functionalities of the MEDLINE database developed by the US National Library of Medicine, which uses Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for indexing. It outlines how to begin searches, refine results, and utilize advanced search strategies, including mapping search terms to MeSH and applying various limits to focus on specific study types. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of examining abstracts to determine the relevance of research articles for scientific review.

1. Developed by US National Library of Medicine (NLM)
this life sciences and biomedicine database uses
specialist Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) to index
highly reputed medical journals.
Ability to map to MeSH search terms and to build up
your search strategy with inbuilt Boolean operators.
A range of ways to refine and limit search results based
on types of studies, cohort study groups and more.
MeSH topics and sub-topics provide a range of ways to
focus in on very specific medical areas of research.
University Library

2. Search OneSearch for the Medline Database
Both Medline and Pubmed are produced by the US National Library of Medicine.
• Medline (1960) represents a more highly selected range of medical journals
which have been catalogued using MeSH – Medical subject headings.
• PubMed (1996) contains all of Medline catalogued records plus articles from
Journals considered out of scope for Medline and some full-text OA journals.

3. Beginning your
Search in Medline
Medline is one of many databases delivered through the Ovid Platform
As you build your search concepts they appear in this area above
your search box.
To map your search terms to MeSH subject headings you need to
be in “Advanced Search” and have this tick box selected.

4. These are the terms that
map to “Gender Selection”
The “Scope”
information tells us
more about the uses
of each MeSH term
The “subject heading” link
shows us where this term sits in
a subject classification tree

5. Working with
subheadings
Choosing the one subject heading will give you access to a number of
sub-headings you can choose from or omit.
For instance, we can see 197 articles specifically relate to the Ethics of sex preselection.
The first completed search is
added to our search history
We can begin to search for
our second core concept.
Selecting two terms – our MeSH subject term and our key word
phrase does not give us this option.
As there is no matching MeSH term for “female or girl baby” we are
requesting a key word search for any appearance of these terms.

6. Using the “search history” area to build your search string
However this combination only gives us 7 results and a review of the display of
results indicate they are not very on topic – that we are not using the correct terms.
From the Ovid “Search History” you can select each of your concept search results
and decide how to combine them into a search string using AND, OR
Instead we are going to try using
the Advanced Limits within Ovid
to focus in on the impact of
“sex preselection” on the female
gender in humans.

7. Refining your search strategy and results
However this combination only gives us 7 results and a review of the display of
results indicate they are not very on topic – that we are not using the correct terms.
This gives us 724 results and a review of results using the “display results” option
identifies many of high relevance to our topic focus.
Using limits available from your search results (further down the LH pane) allows you to hone in on particular types of publications
such as systematic reviews, comparative studies and case reports.

8. However this combination only gives us 7 results and a review of the display of
results indicate they are not very on topic – that we are not using the correct terms.
Look in detail at highly relevant results to
identify other subject and keyword search terms
you could build into your search strategy.
An abstract will tell you a lot about the report or
case study and help you decide if it is a good
focus for your Scientific review assessment.
Honing in on good leads and modifying your search strategy