Evidence Synthesis Methods Interest Group

  • 1.  Nursing as a term for breast feeding / breastfeeding

    Posted May 02, 2024 08:34 AM

    Hello! I am running a search in PubMed for breastfeeding and related terms (breast milk, lactation, etc.). I was wondering about using the term "nursing" as a synonym, but this is obviously problematic because that term is more commonly used for the profession of nursing, which has many, many results in PubMed. 

    Are there any resources or recommendations available for this? Is there a way to include nursing as a synonym for breastfeeding while excluding results that only mention the profession of nursing without mentioning breastfeeding? Is it best to just not include the term nursing as a synonym for breastfeeding for that reason? 

    Thank you!



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    Jules Bailey
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  • 2.  RE: Nursing as a term for breast feeding / breastfeeding

    Posted May 03, 2024 08:46 AM

    Hi Jules,

    You could try a proximity search (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd22/nd22_pubmed_proximity_search_available.html). I looked up the MeSH for breast feeding, and the definition was "nursing of an infant," so for a proximity search you could try "nursing infant"[Title/Abstract:~3]. Depending on other variables in your search, you might combine other words with nursing (mother, parent, infant, child, baby, etc.), but I don't know if that would skew your results drastically.

    Dani



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    Dani LaPreze
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  • 3.  RE: Nursing as a term for breast feeding / breastfeeding

    Posted May 03, 2024 09:39 AM
    Hi Jules,

    I'm curious to see what others have to say about this. Maybe a way you could include nursing as a synonym is to use it in a phrase search with infants, babies and mothers: "nursing infant*" OR " "nursing babies" OR "nursing mother*". If the phrases don't work well, maybe try PubMed's proximity search for more flexibility with incorporating nursing as a synonym. I'm not sure if you NOT "nursing" [mh] would help with minimizing papers only on the nursing profession because doing that could also not retrieve papers relevant to your search terms. I haven't yet come across a search hedge for breastfeeding. I don't know if you have checked search strategies in other review papers on this concept, but maybe that could help you decide whether to include it as a synonym or not.

    Best,
    Lynn Bostwick (she/her)