Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®) are in the MEDLINE database
If you'd like to learn more about Medical Subject Headings, check out the MeSH tutorial form the National Library of Medicine.
PICO is a technique that uses four elements to formulate a good clinical question that returns relevant results in a database search. The technique helps clarify the question - the result is finding a better answer. Keyword brainstorming will help find synonyms used in the database (for example teenagers or adolescents or high school students).
a specific age cohort (adults, older people, adolescents, infants)
a specific population (home-bound patients, hospitalized, nursing home patients)
a specific health cohort (COPD, healthy, systemic lupus erythematosus)
specific problem (hospital-acquired infection, fall injuries in hospitalized patients, CPR methods)
What is the treatment or intervention is in question? (medication, specific therapy, specific procedure)
What is an alternate treatment or intervention for the same treatment or intervention? (holistic medicine versus pharmaceuticals, heat therapy versus cold therapy, cat scan versus MRI)
What do you want to accomplish? (symptom or pain management, better healing time, safest method, survival)
Here is an example of a PICO question and resulting search terms.
In adults with systemic lupus erythematosus, will drugs manage pain symptoms more effectively than complementary or alternative medicine therapies?
P - adults with systemic lupus erythematosus
I - drugs
C - complementary and alternative medicine
O - manage pain symptoms
Search terms:
P - systemic lupus erythematosus is listed as subject heading Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic in CINAHL
I - drugs
C - alternative medicine, complementary medicine (or be more specific: traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic, supplements, chiropractic, homeopathy, naturopathy, massage)
O - pain management, pain control, pain therapy