Like with PubMed's MeSH and Embase's Emtree, CINAHL offers its own set of subject terms: CINAHL Headings. Subject terms allow you to search by meaning, and they make a good supplement to using keywords. You can find out more on the Subject Terms guide from the KU Medical Library.
You can add CINAHL Headings terms two ways: manually or using the CINAHL Heading search interface. For example, using the search example from the previous page you can simply type:
MH "Neoplasms" is the correct CINAHL Heading for the concept cancer, and is CINAHL's equivalent of "Neoplasms"[Mesh] in PubMed and 'malignant neoplasm'/exp in Embase.
While you can type in CINAHL Heading terms directly into the search box, you will typically need to search for the correct term to ensure accurate syntax. To search for your term, first find and click the link to CINAHL Headings in the lower left of the CINAHL homepage to open the CINAHL Heading search.
From here you can look up specific term from CINAHL Headings, as well as refining them (as Major Concept or Explode) and adding them to your search. Note that you can join multiple terms using different Booleans including AND, OR, and NOT.
By adding various terms you can building a search like the following with three different CINAHL Headings related to cancer, treatment, and the elderly linked by the Boolean AND:
