Searching biomedical databases on complementary medicine: the use of controlled vocabulary among authors, indexers and investigators

Table 4 Frequency of palpation procedural terms in titles, abstracts and four databases

Palpation Procedural Terms Used in the Search Strategies	Titles n = 38	Abstracts n = 37¹	MEDLINE (mh) n = 29²	MANTIS (de) n = 28²	CINAHL (sh) n = 13²	Web of Science n = 26^2,3,4
Diagnosis [mh] [sh] [de]	2	3	17	23	7	2
Manual	3	9				2
Manipulat*	2	7
Manipulation, chiropractic [mh] [sh] [de]				4	1
Manipulation, orthopedic [mh] [sh] [de]			4	6	3
Manipulation, osteopathic [mh] [de]
Manipulation, spinal [mh] [de]	2	7		5		1
Palpation [mh] [sh] [de] /palpat*	7	19	11	16	6	4
Authors' and Indexers' Terms
Physical examination [mh] [sh] [de]	1	3	5	15	5	3

[mh] = Medical Subject Headings in MEDLINE; [pt] = publication type in MEDLINE; [sh] = Subject Heading in CINAHL [de] = Descriptor in MANTIS Note: ¹One study did not have an abstract online. ²Not all studies had abstracts. ³Web of Science does not have a controlled vocabulary. ⁴Eleven studies had no keywords generated. * is a truncation symbol for a wild card search in PubMed and Web of Science.

ISSN: 2662-7671