Ovid

Subject Headings, are a controlled vocabulary thesaurus similar to Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in PubMed. They provide a standardized terms to describe contents of articles. 

Why use Subject Headings

They are a retrieval tool that can help increase the accuracy and completeness of a search. Subject headings cannot be made up. Ovid MEDLINE has a predetermined collection of terms. Each article in Ovid MEDLINE is indexed with a handful of these terms. When searching on subject headings, all articles tagged with that heading will be retrieved. Please note that subject headings cannot be used when searching Ovid Journals.

1. To search for an appropriate subject heading, you will want to type your term into the "Advanced Search" box and hit the "Term Finder" button.

2. A new window will open, here you can type your term into the search box and hit the search icon.

3.  Results will default to returning subject headings by best match. To add subject headings to your search, you will check off the subject headings you wish to add. Then you will click on "Add to Search Options" 

Tip: you can click on "Scope Note" to find a description of the heading and what it covers and "MeSH Tree" will show you the MeSH hierarchy. 

4. When you click on "Add to Search Options" you can select the best way to add your subject heading. For more information on Explode vs. Focus, please check out Explode vs. Focus

5. Once you select how you wish to add your subject heading to your search, it will appear in your "Advanced Search" query. Now you only have to click "Search"

6. After you have your searches of subject headings and keywords, you have to combine your searches together. 

Tip: For more details on combining searches, look at our Searching Tips section

You have completed the search for your first concept! Repeat the steps for all remaining concepts. 

When using subject headings in Ovid, you have the option to "Explode" the heading(s), make the heading(s) "Focus", or both.

• Explode - retrieves all references indexed to that term as well as all references indexed to any narrower subject terms. This will increase the number of results. Not all subject heading will have the option to explode
  • To find out what, if any, narrower topics are associated with your subject heading click on the "MeSH Tree", this will present a new screen that allows you to view the narrower subject terms associated with your topic.
• Focus - retrieves references that have this subject heading as their main topic. This will find fewer results, but with higher relevance.
• Both -  includes your selected subject heading as well as more specific headings, and only retrieves references that have any of these headings as their main topic. This broadens the scope of the search, while also increasing the specificity of the results.

Subheadings are an advanced tool that provide more detail for your search. They can help narrow your subject headings to cover areas such as therapy, diagnosis, etiology, genetics, surgery, and much more. To explore the list of subheadings, click on "subheadings" in the term finder window. 

This will show you Ovid's extensive Subheading choices. You have the option to narrow your results further by selecting specific subheadings from the list. However, this can be very restrictive and may cause you to miss relevant references. Use with caution. Also note that subheadings will vary from subject heading to subject heading.