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Improving Efficacy of PubMed Clinical Queries for Retrieving Scientifically Strong Studies on Treatment

^a Biomedical Department of Internal Medicine, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
^b Biomedical Department of Internal Medicine, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
^c Clinical Methodology, Epidemiology and Statistics Unit, National Relevance Hospital Trust Civico e Benfratelli, Palermo, Italy
^d Biomedical Department of Internal Medicine, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
^e Biomedical Department of Internal Medicine, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
^f Biomedical Department of Internal Medicine, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
^g Biomedical Department of Internal Medicine, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

^_* Correspondence and reprints to: Salvatore Corrao, MD, Associate Professor, Biomedical Department of Internal Medicine, Piazza delle Cliniche 2, 90127 Palermo, Italy. (Email: s.corrao{at}tiscali.it).

Received for publication: 02/16/06; accepted for publication: 04/23/06.

The authors evaluated the retrieval power of PubMed "Clinical Queries," narrow search string, about therapy in comparison with a modified search string to avoid possible retrieval bias. PubMed search strategy was compared to a slightly modified string that included the Britannic English term "randomised." The authors tested the two strings joined onto each of four terms concerning topics of broad interest: hypertension, hepatitis, diabetes, and heart failure. In particular, precision was computed for not-indexed citations. The added word "randomised" improved total citation retrieval in any case. Total retrieval gain for not-indexed citations ranged from 11.1% to 21.4%. A significant number of Randomized Controlled Trial(s) (RCT)s (9.1-18.2%) was retrieved for each of the selected topics. They were often recently published RCTs. The authors think that correction of the Clinical Queries filter (when they focus on therapy and use narrow searches) is necessary to avoid biased search results with loss of relevant and up-to-date scientifically sound information.

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				N. L. Wilczynski and R. B. Haynes Response to Corrao et al.: Improving Efficacy of PubMed Clinical Queries for Retrieving Scientifically Strong Studies on Treatment J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc., March 1, 2007; 14(2): 247 - 248. [Full Text] [PDF]