Developing optimal search strategies for detecting clinically sound and relevant causation studies in EMBASE.
Developing optimal search strategies for detecting clinically sound and relevant causation studies in EMBASE.
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DOI：
10.1186/1472-6947-5-8
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发表时间：
2005-03-22
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Wilczynski, Nancy L
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Haynes, R Brian;Kastner, Monika;Wilczynski, Nancy L
背景：评估推定原因与不良临床结果之间关联的存在性和强度是复杂的，最好通过评估所有可用的证据来完成。随着慢性病负担的增加、卫生专业人员的时间需求增加以及信息爆炸，有效检索最佳证据变得更加重要和更加困难。最佳搜索检索可能会受到许多障碍的阻碍，尤其是糟糕的搜索策略，但使用经过经验测试的方法搜索过滤器可以提高搜索有关病因学的合理证据的准确性。尽管此类过滤器之前已开发用于 MEDLINE 中因果关系的相关研究，但 EMBASE 不存在经过实证检验的搜索策略。 方法：进行了一项分析调查，将期刊的手动搜索与 EMBASE 中的候选搜索词及其组合的检索进行比较。 6 名研究助理阅读了 EMBASE 索引的 55 种期刊的所有期刊。所有文章均使用目的和质量指标进行评级，并分类为临床相关的原始研究、评论文章、一般论文或病例报告。然后，根据因果关系（病因学）和其他临床主题领域的明确标准，原始文章和评论文章根据科学价值被分类为“通过”或“失败”。针对因果关系制定了候选检索策略，然后在 55 种 EMBASE 期刊的子集中运行，将检索结果与手动检索数据进行比较。计算了搜索策略的敏感性、特异性、精密度和准确度。 结果：在 1489 项因果关系研究中，14% 在方法学上是合理的。当搜索词组合起来时，敏感度达到 92%。与最佳单项策略相比，最佳项组合导致敏感性 (19%) 和特异性 (5.2%) 绝对增加。与单个术语相比，最大化组合术语的特异性导致增加 7.1%，但这是以敏感性为代价的（绝对下降 39%）。优化敏感性和特异性之间权衡的搜索策略实现了 81.9% 的敏感性和 81.4% 的特异性。 结论：我们发现了从 EMBASE 检索高质量因果关系研究的搜索策略，具有高敏感性、高特异性或两者的最佳平衡。
BACKGROUND: Evaluating the existence and strength of an association between a putative cause and adverse clinical outcome is complex and best done by assessing all available evidence. With the increasing burden of chronic disease, greater time demands on health professionals, and the explosion of information, effective retrieval of best evidence has become both more important and more difficult. Optimal search retrieval can be hampered by a number of obstacles, especially poor search strategies, but using empirically tested methodological search filters can enhance the accuracy of searches for sound evidence concerning etiology. Although such filters have previously been developed for studies of relevance to causation in MEDLINE, no empirically tested search strategy exists for EMBASE.METHODS: An analytic survey was conducted, comparing hand searches of journals with retrievals from EMBASE for candidate search terms and combinations. 6 research assistants read all issues of 55 journals indexed in EMBASE. All articles were rated using purpose and quality indicators and categorized into clinically relevant original studies, review articles, general papers, or case reports. The original and review articles were then categorized as 'pass' or 'fail' for scientific merit according to explicit criteria in the areas of causation (etiology) and other clinical topics. Candidate search strategies were developed for causation, then run in a subset of 55 EMBASE journals, the retrievals being compared with the hand search data. The sensitivity, specificity, precision, and accuracy of the search strategies were calculated.RESULTS: Of the 1489 studies classified as causation, 14% were methodologically sound. When search terms were combined, sensitivity reached 92%. Compared with the best single-term strategy, the best combination of terms resulted in an absolute increase in sensitivity (19%) and specificity (5.2%). Maximizing specificity for combined terms resulted in an increase of 7.1% compared with the single term but this came at an expense of sensitivity (39% absolute decrease). A search strategy that optimized the trade-off between sensitivity and specificity achieved 81.9% for sensitivity and 81.4% for specificity.CONCLUSION: We have discovered search strategies that retrieve high quality studies of causation from EMBASE with high sensitivity, high specificity, or an optimal balance of each.