Contribution of Articles Published in the Iranian Dental Latin Journals Indexed in PubMed by MeSH Descriptors

This study aimed to identify the level of knowledge of dental authors regarding the use of MeSH indexing tools in research by comparing the keywords of the articles published in Iranian dental journals indexed in PubMed. In this descriptive and applied study, a total of 1,091 keywords in 239 research articles published in 20 issues of 5 Iranian dental Latin journals indexed in PubMed in 2016 were matched with MeSH descriptors. The keywords were classified according to the degree of compliance in three groups of exact compliance, relative compliance, and noncompliance. According to the results, 483 (44.3%), 153 (14%), and 455 (41.7%) keywords had exact compliance, relative compliance, and non-compliance with MeSH descriptors, respectively. The three keywords, namely Cone-Beam Computed Tomography, Scanning Electron Microscopy, and Mineral Trioxide Aggregate, were among the top most frequent keywords with exact compliance, relative compliance, and noncompliance with MeSH descriptors, respectively. The articles in all the reviewed journals, with the exception of the Journal of Dentistry of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, were prone to the risk of nonretrieval and anonymity due to the inefficiency of researchers in using MeSH for keyword selection.