Biomaterial Database

A controlled vocabulary for nursing practice and research. 2002

Kaija Saranto

University of Kuopio, Department of Health Policy and Management P.O.Box 1627, FIN-70211 Kuopio, Finland.

The paper describes the process of evolving a controlled Nursing Vocabulary for indexing and information retrieval purposes. The vocabulary is based on terms of the thesaurus of Medline i.e. MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) by National Library of Medicine and the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) by the International Council of Nurses. The vocabulary consists of 10 themes central to nursing domain. The vocabulary is added as an independent theme to the Finnish thesaurus FinMeSH. The validity of the vocabulary has been tested for indexing nursing research once and has afterwards been revised. The validity will be tested again during spring 2002.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D009732	Nursing Care	Care given to patients by nursing service personnel.	Care, Nursing,Management, Nursing Care,Nursing Care Management
D005387	Finland	A country in northern Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia, and Gulf of Finland, between Sweden and Russia. The capital is Helsinki.	Aland Islands,Åland Islands
D015399	Nursing Research	Research carried out by nurses, generally in clinical settings, in the areas of clinical practice, evaluation, nursing education, nursing administration, and methodology.	Research, Nursing
D018875	Vocabulary, Controlled	A specified list of terms with a fixed and unalterable meaning, and from which a selection is made when CATALOGING; ABSTRACTING AND INDEXING; or searching BOOKS; JOURNALS AS TOPIC; and other documents. The control is intended to avoid the scattering of related subjects under different headings (SUBJECT HEADINGS). The list may be altered or extended only by the publisher or issuing agency. (From Harrod's Librarians' Glossary, 7th ed, p163)	Controlled Vocabulary,Thesaurus,Controlled Thesauri,Controlled Thesaurus,Thesauri,Controlled Vocabularies,Thesauri, Controlled,Thesaurus, Controlled,Vocabularies, Controlled