Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze how accurately authors of the Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing used MeSH terms as key words. Method: A total of 724 key words used in the 225 papers of Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing from 2003 to 2007 were compared with MeSH terms. Results: Fifty nine point eight percent of total key words were completely coincident with MeSH terms, 13.5% were entry terms, and 21.8% were not MeSH terms. The coincidence rates for 2003 and 2007 separately were 38.5% and 70.9%. Also, 25.3% of papers precisely used MeSH terms as key words and 8% did not use any MeSH terms. Conclusion: The results show that the coincidence rate of key words with MeSH terms was at a moderate level and gradually increased according to year. However, there is a need for us to understand MeSH more specifically and accurately.