Influence of automated indexing in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) selection for pharmacy practice journals
| Author | Fernandez-Llimos, Fernando |
| Author | Negrão, Luciana G. |
| Author | Bond, Christine |
| Author | Stewart, Derek |
| Available date | 2024-08-28T04:23:42Z |
| Publication Date | 2024 |
| Publication Name | Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy |
| Resource | Scopus |
| ISSN | 15517411 |
| Abstract | 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. |
| Sponsor | In 1996, the NLM started the Indexing Initiative project, aiming to explore new indexing technologies.14 Until 2011, MeSH indexing was conducted entirely manually by NLM human catalogers. In 2011, recognizing the increasing volume of publications and the need to reduce indexing times, NLM introduced the algorithm Medical Text Indexer (MTI) to propose MeSH terms for 14 journals. These potential MeSH terms were then checked for relevance by humans. The number of journals indexed with support of the MTI increased to 230 in 2014. In 2019, fully automated indexing was initiated with a (unspecified) group of journals, using the MTI-Auto (MTIA), with human curation (i.e., checked for quality assurance) of selected articles. From April 2022, all journals in MEDLINE are entirely indexed by the MTIA. To ensure the quality of the process, NLM stated that human catalogers would continue to curate citations involving genes and proteins, cases of known ambiguity (terms with more than one potential meaning), clinical trials, and an additional random set of citations. Although the use of articles' full text was proposed for the purposes of indexing,14 the MTIA uses only article's title and abstracts and the MeSH terms of PubMed related records to generate a list of MeSH terms, Supplementary Concept, and Publication Type descriptors selected for the article being indexed.15 The effects of this shift from humans to automated processes on the quality of MeSH assignment has not been fully evaluated.16 The objective of this study was 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. Given that NLM is U.S.-based, the association of geographical region and MeSH assignment was also explored. |
| Language | en |
| Publisher | Elsevier |
| Subject | Medical subject headings Periodicals as topic Pharmacists Pharmacy Publications Terminology as topic |
| Type | Article |
| Pagination | 911-917 |
| Issue Number | 9 |
| Volume Number | 20 |
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