PubMed's MeSH database does frequency search for mapping now?

OK, so here's a weird thing.

I searched induction therapy in the MeSH database (Pubmed) and it returned the MeSH term Neoadjuvant Therapy. Which is pretty close to what I was looking for, but the weird thing is, I can't figure out how it knew that. Induction therapy is not an entry term for Neoadjuvant Therapy, nor does the word induction appear anywhere in the scope note. The only thing that I can guess is that PubMed is now doing some kind of frequency search, the way that Ovid is so famous for, in order to return a MeSH result.

Psychiatric Manifestations of...

this one comes up a lot!


"Neurologic Manifestations"[Mesh] OR "Mental Disorders/etiology"[Mesh] OR "Mental Disorders/epidemiology"[Mesh] OR "Behavioral Symptoms"[Mesh] OR "Cognition"[Mesh]

Other things to try:
"Learning"[Mesh]
"Anxiety"[Mesh]
"Affect"[Mesh]
"Intelligence"[Mesh]
"Personality Development"[Mesh]
"Educational Status"[Mesh]

Behavioral Symptoms comes from a whole pile of stuff under Behavior. It's a good idea to look at the narrower terms of Behavior to see which ones apply to your particular search. There are some which are almost certain to be irrelevant, though, for example, Behavior,Animal.

some examples of potentially useful MeSH: "Compulsive Behavior"[Mesh:NoExp] OR "Stereotyped Behavior"[Mesh]

Other terms to check out for relevant narrower terms would be Emotions (NT=Anxiety) and Personality (NT=Intelligence)

Adjacency (proximity) searching

Adjacency (proximity) searching

When people can't agree on their terms, adjacency searching is your best friend. Before Chronic Pain was a MeSH term (and even after), you could do some awesome things with proximity.

For example, a search for: chronic adj3 pain.mp. (Ovid Medline) would find all of the following for you:
chronic pain
chronic noncancer pain
chronic non-cancer pain
chronic nonmalignant pain
chronic non-malignant pain
chronic neuropathic pain

and probably even more!

It also does phrase inversions. A search for disease adj3 progression.mp. would find both of the following:
disease progression
progression of the disease

And, it can save you in the case of greek letters, unsearchable characters, and stop words.
oral adj3 estradiol (oral beta estradiol)
accident adj2 emergency.mp. (accident & emergency)
tobacco adj2 disorder*.mp. (tobacco use disorder)

One tricky thing about adjacency is: how do you choose the number that goes after the adj?
How it works is: write out the longest phrase that you want to find. Let's use the example of "progression of the disease"
Put your finger (or your cursor) on the first word. Actually it is the zeroth word, as we will see shortly.
Now count forward over your phrase until you reach the last word.
Progression = 0; of = 1; the = 2; disease = 3.
Therefore, you should put the number 3 after your adj.
disease adj3 progression.mp.

Not sure of all the phrases that might be relevant? Heuristically, adj3 is usually a good default. It's broad enough to catch most of the relevant stuff, but narrow enough that your search won't be hopelessly plagued by false drops. However, if you're not sure, just try an adj4 for the same words, and use NOT to remove the adj3 results. Did you find anything useful?

EBSCO interface allows you to decide whether your want phrase inversions or not. It's nice to have the control, but the downside is you need a cheat sheet to remember which is which.
patient N3 position*
Finds words in any order (patient positioning, positioning of the patient)

patient W3 position*
Find words only in that order (patient positioning*, the patient was in position)

Sadly, adjacency searching is not available in PubMed.

Drug Combinations - don't become enmeshed

Watch out for this tricky one:

MeSH term "Drug Combinations" refers to single preparations containing 2 or more active ingredients (e.g. 1 pill with two drugs in it)

MeSH term "Drug Therapy, Combination" refers to therapy with two or more separate preparations given for a combined effect (e.g. taking 2 pills at the same time)

You might also be interested in:

Drug Interactions
Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions (YI=2014)

Major Depression

For some reason, there is inconsistency in the way that the MesH Depressive Disorder and Depressive Disorder, Major are used.

If you want Major Depression:

"Depressive Disorder, Major"[Majr] AND ("major depression"[tiab] OR "major depressive"[tiab])
OR
"Depressive Disorder"[Majr:NoExp] AND ("major depression"[title] OR "major depressive"[title])

That should capture the relevant stuff - you can change Majr to MeSH and/or add subheadings depending on your question.

Long term outcomes

Man, searching for outcomes is so annoying! Like "interventions", it's such a logical thing for someone to ask for, and yet so completely unsearchable.

"Long Term Adverse Effects"[Mesh] OR "Prognosis"[Mesh] OR "Disease Progression"[Mesh] OR "Follow Up Studies"[Mesh]

(Two things to note: Prognosis includes Treatment Outcomes as a narrower term, and Long Term Adverse Effects was added to the MeSH database in 2016.)

or

"long term"[tiab]

or

"Time Factors"[Mesh]
(technically this is what articles about anything "long term" were supposed to be indexed under pre-2016. And anything long term other than long term adverse effects should still be indexed here post-2016. However, there are two problems - one, indexers forget to use it, and two, they index other time-related stuff here, so you may want to combine it with "long term"[tiab] (rather than using OR between these two) if the rest of your search strategy is rather broad.

EMBASE:

exp follow up/ or prognosis/ or exp treatment outcome/ or disease course/ or exp illness trajectory/ or "long term".ti,ab.

Home management of ....

"Home Care Services"[Mesh]

also
"Home Care Agencies"[Mesh] OR "Home Health Aides"[Mesh] OR "Homebound Persons"[Mesh] OR "House Calls"[Mesh]

This is for home management by healthcare professionals. It's not for searches about unpaid home care, usually by family members.