CLINICAL SEARCH RETRIEVAL FROM FOUR ELECTRONIC DATABASES

本提案中的项目是一系列研究的一部分，旨在寻求开发检索策略的方法，以改善从大型书目数据库（包括MEDLINE、Embase、PsycLIT和/或CINAHL）中检索临床相关和科学合理的研究报告。 检索策略的目的是：1）帮助医疗保健提供者进行自己的检索; 2）帮助有关医疗保健干预措施的已发表证据的评审员检索所有相关引文; 3）为图书馆员提供资源，帮助医疗保健提供者构建自己的检索; 4）为数据库制作者提供索引过程的输入。 拟议的项目涉及完善利用这些电子数据库用于临床目的的方法，以便最终测试对临床实践的影响。在我们以前使用MEDLINE的研究中，我们记录了超过60，000个“方法学模糊限制”的检索性能，即旨在检测符合病因学，预后，诊断，预防和治疗卫生保健问题研究的基本科学标准的应用临床研究的检索策略。 为了扩展本研究，本研究需要解决的问题是：1。在MEDLINE、Embase、PsycLIT和CINAHL的1999年文件中，在内容和质量方面，定义对人类疾病的病因、病程、诊断、预防或治疗或定性方面的临床问题最重要的研究的方法学术语的操作特征是什么？2.是否可以创建经验搜索策略（“对冲”），将联合收割机术语结合起来，以优化上述电子数据库和主题的收益？ 3.这些数据库在检索性能方面如何比较？4.当使用相同的期刊，子集，即，当使用1999年发表的引文时，1986年和1991年MEDLINE数据库中的检索策略表现如何？5.这个项目中开发的搜索策略与其他小组发布的搜索策略相比如何？为了评价检索策略，与研究设计特征相关的索引术语和文本词将被视为诊断测试，文献的手动审查将被视为金标准。 通过人工审查，文章将被定义为具有相关内容并符合临床实践的基本方法学标准。 将在4个电子数据库中确定检索策略的灵敏度、特异性、准确度和精密度。

The projects in this proposal are part of a series of investigations seeking ways to develop search strategies that will improve retrieval of clinically relevant and scientifically sound study reports from large bibliographic databases including MEDLINE, Embase, PsycLIT and/or CINAHL. The purpose of the search strategies is 1) to assist health care providers to do their own searches; 2) to help reviewers of published evidence concerning health care interventions to retrieve all relevant citations; 3) to provide resources for librarians to help health care providers to construct their own searches; and 4) to provide input to the database producers on their indexing processes. The proposed projects involve perfecting ways to harness these electronic databases for clinical purposes so the effect on clinical practice can be eventually tested. In our previous research using MEDLINE, we documented the retrieval performance of over 60,000 "methodologic hedges", that is, search strategies designed to detect applied clinical research studies that meet basic scientific standards for study of the etiology, prognosis, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of health care problems. To extend this research the questions to be addressed in this investigation are: 1. What are the operating characteristics, in 1999 files of MEDLINE, Embase, PsycLIT, and CINAHL, of methodologic terms that define studies of most importance, in terms of both content and quality, to clinical questions about the cause, course, diagnosis, prevention or therapy, or qualitative aspects of human disorders?; 2. Can empirical search strategies ("hedges") be created that combine terms to optimize the yield from the above noted electronic databases and topics? 3. How do the databases compare in terms of their retrieval performance?; 4. How well do the methodologic search strategies derived in our previous research perform in more recent MEDLINE files when using the same journal, subset, i.e., how well do the search strategies derived in the 1986 and 1991 MEDLINE databases perform when using citations published in 1999?; 5. How do the search strategies developed in this project compare with those published by other groups? To evaluate the search strategies, index terms and textwords related to research design features will be treated as diagnostic tests and a manual review of the literature will be treated as the gold standard . Articles will be defined as having relevant content and meeting basic methodologic criteria for clinical practice by the manual review. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and precision of the search strategies will be determined in each of the 4 electronic databases.