Using complex indexes like MeSH takes some practice but is well worth the effort. An excellent article by Lowe and Barnett covers all of the salient points 2 . Using Truncation Truncation is a facility offered by many databases which enables the searcher to look for several variations of the same word. For example, if searching for articles on hypnosis, the searcher would want to include hypnotise, hypnotise, hypnotised hypnotising, hypnotics, as well as the US spellings hypnotize etc. Truncation enables the searcher to do this without having to type in the individual terms.
Wildcard characters perform a similar function but in the middle of a word.
These are best used in non-indexed fields like the title and abstract. 7.1 Predefined search strategies Interest in identifying particular types of study has lead to the development of some comprehensive search strategies. Other organisations have also published methodological filters, Medline strategies to filter out specific types of study. Medline Bibliographic database produced by the US National Library of Medicine, the electronic version of Index Medicus. Produced from 1966 onwards it holds citations and abstracts from 3700 journals in 70 countries.