Consistency and Accuracy of the Medical Subject Headings® Thesaurus for Electronic Indexing and Retrieval of Chronobiologic References

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the reliability of the National Library of Medicine (NLM)'s Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus for electronic indexing and retrieval of published chronobiologic papers. A sample set of 228 recent chronobiologic references was downloaded from the MEDLINE's database together with all MeSH entries associated with them. The following descriptors were analyzed among the headings of obvious chronobiologic relevance: chronobiology, chronobiology disorders, biological clocks, circadian rhythm, chronotherapy, drug administration schedule, periodicity, seasons, sleep disorders/circadian rhythm, and time factors. A comparison was made between the number of references identified by each heading and the number of articles actually pertinent to the same heading (as ascertained after reading each article of the sample set). This made possible an assessment of consistency (retrieved number not less than actual number) and accuracy (retrieved number not greater than actual number) of the usage of each MeSH entry. By reading each article, it was also possible to identify common chronobiologic concepts not yet associated with specific MeSH headings. In the preselected set of chronobiologic references, seasons identified all articles pertinent to seasonal variations and rhythms. However, chronobiology disorders missed 97.6% of its pertinent articles; periodicity, 95.2%; chronobiology, 87.7%; chronotherapy, 70%; time factors, 62.3%; and sleep disorders/circadian rhythm, 47.4%. Drug administration schedule missed 40% of the chronotherapeutic articles and identified 15% of the chronopharmacologic articles; biological clocks missed 24.1% of its pertinent articles and wrongly identified 8.3% of the retrieved articles; and circadian rhythm missed 2.7% of all circadian studies and wrongly identified 8.2% of the articles it retrieved. When used to search chronobiologic articles in the entire MEDLINE database, drug administration schedule, seasons, and time factors appeared to lack sufficient specificity to produce accurate results. Some common chronobiologic concepts were found not to be associated with any specific MeSH heading, namely, chronoepidemiology, chronopharmacology, chronotoxicology, chronotype, entrainment, and masking. For common chronobiologic concepts and definitions, the use of available MeSH headings appears to often yield inconsistent and inaccurate results; moreover, the MeSH thesaurus remains incomplete.

Quality of pharmacy-specific Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) assignment in pharmacy journals indexed in MEDLINE

“…Portaluppi et al drew attention to the fact that the MeSH thesaurus was inaccurate and incomplete for retrieving chronobiologic references. 24 Similarly, Richter et al found that several entry terms commonly used by physical therapists did not map to an appropriate MeSH. 29 In the pharmacy field, an imbalance was found in MeSH coverage of pharmacy concepts relative to MeSH terminology specific to the nursing and dentistry professions.…”

Ethical and Methodological Standards for Laboratory and Medical Biological Rhythm Research

“…Papers appearing in Chronobiology International do encompass a large variety of the life sciences, such as plant and animal biology, from the molecular level and beyond, plus physiology, pathology, and clinical medicine of diverse specialties (Portaluppi, 2007). This article updates an earlier one by the same authors (Touitou et al, 2006).…”

The Medical Subject Headings® thesaurus remains inaccurate and incomplete for electronic indexing and retrieval of chronobiologic references

“…The problem with bibliography indexing and retrieval in chronobiology is that chronobiologic studies encompass a large variety of scientific disciplines, for example, plant and animal biology, from the molecular level and beyond, plus physiology, pathology and clinical medicine of all specialties. For this reason, searching the scientific literature for chronobiologic studies cannot be confined to the few existing specialty publications, and we demonstrated 4 years ago that the chronobiologic entries of the MeSH thesaurus show inconsistent and inaccurate results (Portaluppi 2007). At that time, common chronobiologic concepts were not found in the MeSH thesaurus, further limiting its usefulness for this discipline.…”

“…Four years ago, we analyzed (Portaluppi 2007) the headings of the National Library of Medicine (NLM)'s Medical Subject Headings 1 (MeSH) thesaurus of highest relevance to the concepts and definitions of chronobiology, in order to assess the reliability of the electronic indexing and retrieval of published chronobiologic studies from the NLM MEDLINE 1 /PubMed 1 catalogue database, undoubtedly the most widely used electronic tools for bibliographic needs in science. The problem with bibliography indexing and retrieval in chronobiology is that chronobiologic studies encompass a large variety of scientific disciplines, for example, plant and animal biology, from the molecular level and beyond, plus physiology, pathology and clinical medicine of all specialties.…”