28 Why Perform a Keyword Search?

Search for Indexed records completed

The search you’ve just performed will only retrieve indexed records (MEDLINE records). MEDLINE records are the only records that contain:

• • medical subject headings

(like the “Capsaicin/therapeutic use”[Mesh] or “Peripheral Nervous System Diseases/therapy”[Mesh] terms)

• • assigned subject characteristics

(age, gender, human/animal)

• • assigned publication types.

(like “ randomized controlled trial“)

Searching for Unindexed Records

It’s now time to search for unindexed records.  To search for unindexed records, you must use keywords, words you think the author may have used in the title or abstract, and you must avoid use of indexer-dependent filters.