title: How to use the medical subject headings (MeSH).
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A thorough understanding of the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings can increase the efficiency and precision of one's literature searching skills using the Medline database.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe how to use the Medical Subject Headings to conduct a search for literature, and how to write up a description of the search strategy.
  
  
  METHODS
  The author interprets National Library of Medicine documentation to describe Medical Subject Headings, and shares strategies from daily literature searching.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Knowing how to use Medical Subject Headings improves the efficiency and quality of one's literature searches.
authors.affiliation: Library, College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Baumann
mesh_terms: D000043:Abstracting and Indexing; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D016239:MEDLINE; D046650:Medical Subject Headings