Know the difference between a subject heading and a keyword

• Subject headings are official standardized terms added to the citation by the indexer.
They help to identify the specific topics covered in the article and to retrieve articles on a topic that might be described by a number of different words or phrases. In CINAHL these standardized terms are known as CINAHL Headings.

For example, "cancer" may also be referred to as "neoplasms," "tumors," "carcinoma," etc. In CINAHL the official subject heading for articles about "cancer" or "tumors" is Neoplasms, with specific types of cancers indexed to specific neoplasm terms (e.g., Breast Neoplasms, Leukemia). In order to find all the articles on cancer, you would need to use the broad subject heading Neoplasms and the narrower, more specific terms grouped under it.

• Keywords include the exact words that the author uses in the title or abstract.
Searching for "cancer" as a keyword would retrieve references that use the word “cancer” but would not necessarily retrieve other relevant items that use the words “tumor” or “carcinoma” or “neoplasms” or “leukemia”. Keywords should be used when there is no good match for a subject heading.

The best way to search the database is to use the appropriate CINAHL subject headings. Click on the CINAHL Headings link to browse for and identify the most appropriate headings and incorporate them into your search.