Journal of Education and Health Promotion

Abstract Introduction: In the present era, thesauri as tools in indexing play an effective role in integrating
retrieval preventing fragmentation as well as a multiplicity of terminologies and also in providing
information content of documents. Goals: This study aimed to investigate the keywords of
articles indexed in IranMedex in terms of origin, structure and indexing situation and their
Compliance with the Persian Medical Thesaurus and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).
Materials and Methods: This study is an applied research, and a survey has been conducted.
Statistical population includes 32,850 Persian articles which are indexed in the IranMedex during
the years 1385–1391. 379 cases were selected as sample of the study. Data collection was done
using a checklist. In analyzing the findings, the SPSS Software were used. Findings: Although
there was no significant difference in terms of indexing origin between the proportion of different
types of the Persian and English keywords of articles indexed in the IranMedex, the compliance
rates of the Persian and English keywords with the Persian medical thesaurus and MeSH were
different in different years. In the meantime, the structure of keywords is leaning more towards
phrase structure, and a single word structure and the majority of keywords are selected from
the titles and abstracts. Conclusion: The authors’ familiarity with the thesauri and controlled
tools causes homogeneity in assigning keywords and also provides more precise, faster, and
easier retrieval of the keywords. It’s suggested that a mixture of natural and control languages
to be used in this database in order to reach more comprehensive results.