Influence of automated indexing in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) selection for pharmacy practice journals.

Autor: Fernandez-Llimos F; Applied Molecular Biosciences Unit (UCIBIO), Laboratory of Pharmacology, Department of Drug Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal. Electronic address: fllimos@ff.up.pt., Negrão LG; Applied Molecular Biosciences Unit (UCIBIO), Laboratory of Pharmacology, Department of Drug Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal. Electronic address: up202310533@edu.ff.up.pt., Bond C; Primary Care, University of Aberdeen Institute of Applied Health Sciences, Aberdeen, United Kingdom. Electronic address: c.m.bond@abdn.ac.uk., Stewart D; College of Pharmacy, QU Health, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar. Electronic address: d.stewart@qu.edu.qa.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Research in social & administrative pharmacy : RSAP [Res Social Adm Pharm] 2024 Sep; Vol. 20 (9), pp. 911-917. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Jun 12.
DOI: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2024.06.003
Abstrakt: Background: The Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus is the controlled vocabulary used to index articles in MEDLINE. MeSH were mainly manually selected until June 2022 when an automated algorithm, the Medical Text Indexer (MTI) automated was fully implemented. A selection of automated indexed articles is then reviewed (curated) by human indexers to ensure the quality of the process.
Objective: To describe the association of MEDLINE indexing methods (i.e., manual, automated, and automated + curated) on the MeSH assignment in pharmacy practice journals compared with medical journals.
Methods: Original research articles published between 2016 and 2023 in two groups of journals (i.e., the Big-five general medicine and three pharmacy practice journals) were selected from PubMed using journal-specific search strategies. Metadata of the articles, including MeSH terms and indexing method, was extracted. A list of pharmacy-specific MeSH terms had been compiled from previously published studies, and their presence in pharmacy practice journal records was investigated. Using bivariate and multivariate analyses, as well as effect size measures, the number of MeSH per article was compared between journal groups, geographic origin of the journal, and indexing method.
Results: A total of 8479 original research articles was retrieved: 6254 from the medical journals and 2225 from pharmacy practice journals. The number of articles indexed by the various methods was disproportionate; 77.8 % of medical and 50.5 % of pharmacy manually indexed. Among those indexed using the automated system, 51.1 % medical and 10.9 % pharmacy practice articles were then curated to ensure the indexing quality. Number of MeSH per article varied among the three indexing methods for medical and pharmacy journals, with 15.5 vs. 13.0 in manually indexed, 9.4 vs. 7.4 in automated indexed, and 12.1 vs. 7.8 in automated and then curated, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed significant effect of indexing method and journal group in the number of MeSH attributed, but not the geographical origin of the journal.
Conclusions: Articles indexed using automated MTI have less MeSH than manually indexed articles. Articles published in pharmacy practice journals were indexed with fewer number of MeSH compared with general medical journal articles regardless of the indexing method used.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Fernando Fernandez-Llimos is associate editor of Revista Brasileira de Farmácia Hospitalar e Serviços de Saúde. Christine Bond is editor-in-chief of International Journal of Pharmacy Practice. Derek Stewart is editor-in-chief of International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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