A Strategic Approach to Mesh Term Selection for Systematic Reviews

Authors- Research Scholar S. Narmatha, Research Advisor Dr. V. Maniraj

Abstract-Systematic reviews in medicine require extensive literature searches to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the findings and recommendations. This process heavily depends on thorough searches for relevant medical literature, which typically involves collaboration between medical researchers and information professionals with expertise in both medicine and search techniques. Together, they develop detailed search queries, which often involve complex Boolean logic and include both free-text and standardized index terms like MeSH. Constructing these queries is a time-consuming and intricate task. Using MeSH terms has been shown to improve the quality of search results, but selecting the right MeSH terms can be difficult. Information specialists may not always be familiar with the MeSH database, leading to uncertainty about which terms are appropriate for a given query. As a result, the full potential of MeSH terminology is often not fully exploited. This study investigates methods for recommending MeSH terms based on an initial Boolean query that only includes free-text terms. These methods aim to automatically identify the most effective MeSH terms for inclusion in a systematic review query. The study empirically evaluates several strategies for suggesting MeSH terms, examining how these suggestions impact the effectiveness of Boolean queries through retrieval, ranking, and refinement.

DOI: /10.61463/ijset.vol.13.issue1.185