GMU College of Pharmacy advocacy contributes to the addition of new MeSH term “Evidence-Based Pharmacy Practice”

A comparison of search results using MeSH terms on PubMed was performed using evidence-based practice, medicine, nursing, dentistry, and pharmacy. Evidence-based pharmacy was “unfortunately” not a MeSH term. Evidence-based practice in other fields like medicine, nursing, and dentistry was significant. A search on PubMed with the MeSH term “evidence-based practice” on February 22, 2019 yielded 83,113 articles; “evidence-based medicine” (69,990 articles); “evidence-based nursing” (3498 articles); and “evidence-based dentistry” (1196 articles). 1

Ms. Dalia presented the finding in Dubai International Pharmaceutical & Technology (DUPHAT) Conference 2019, 2 judged by Dr. Shane Deselle, editor of Research in Social & Administrative Pharmacy (RSAP). Dr. Shane invited the work to be published in RSAP. The publication (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1551741119301664 ) was sent to the National Library of Medicine suggesting to include Evidence-based Pharmacy as a MeSH term and it is now added in the 2020 list. We believe along with other advocacy efforts, GMU’s contribution helped in this achievement and future greater visibility of pharmacy articles.

1. Al Saeedy D, Thomas D, Palaian S. Visibility of evidence-based pharmacy on PubMed-Identity crisis?. Research in social & administrative pharmacy: RSAP (2019); https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30879986
2. DUPHAT 2019; https://duphat.ae/ (Accessed on December 27, 2019).
3. Salgado TM, Fernandez-Llimos F. Missing pharmacy-specific Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms: Problems and solutions. Research in social & administrative pharmacy: RSAP. 2019 Apr 11; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1551741119303894