The projects in this continuation proposal are part of a series of investigations seeking ways to develop and harness search strategies (""""""""hedges"""""""") that will improve retrieval of clinically relevant and scientifically sound study reports from large, general purpose, biomedical research bibliographic databases including MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycLIT, and CINAHL. The long-term objective is to harness the most clinically relevant content of these electronic databases so that their effects 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 key scientific standards for validity and applicability to clinical practice. A project is currently underway to extend this research in recent MEDLINE files and in EMBASE, PsycLIT, and CINAHL. The database created in this research can be used to answer new questions, specifically: A) What are the operating characteristics, in year 2000 files of MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycLIT, and CINAHL, of methodologic terms that define studies of the most importance to clinical questions about the economic aspects of human disorders, to questions about clinical prediction, and to clinical questions that lead to a review of the literature? B) What are the operating characteristics in these electronic databases of individual age-related terms for retrieving studies of a particular age-specific area of medicine, and how do the top yielding strategies perform when combined with top yielding methodologic search strategies? C) For diverse clinical content areas, to what extent are articles clustered in journal subsets, and how is the precision of searching affected when running searches in journal subsets? D) What is the correlation between journal impact factors and yield from the journals included in our hand searched database? To create and evaluate the search strategies, index terms and text words are treated as 'diagnostic tests' and a hand search of the literature is treated as the 'gold standard'. Articles are defined as having relevant content and meeting basic methodologic criteria for clinical practice by the hand search. The operating characteristics of these strategies are determined in the 4 electronic databases.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Library of Medicine (NLM)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01LM006866-04
Application #
6649870
Study Section
Biomedical Library and Informatics Review Committee (BLR)
Program Officer
Sim, Hua-Chuan
Project Start
2002-09-01
Project End
2004-08-31
Budget Start
2003-09-01
Budget End
2004-08-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$108,000
Indirect Cost
Name
Mcmaster University
Department
Type
DUNS #
207510108
City
Hamilton
State
ON
Country
Canada
Zip Code
L8 3-Z5
Baier, L A; Wilczynski, N L; Haynes, R B (2010) Tackling the growth of the obesity literature: obesity evidence spreads across many journals. Int J Obes (Lond) 34:1526-30
Kastner, Monika; Wilczynski, Nancy L; McKibbon, Ann K et al. (2009) Diagnostic test systematic reviews: bibliographic search filters (""Clinical Queries"") for diagnostic accuracy studies perform well. J Clin Epidemiol 62:974-81
Eady, Angela May; Wilczynski, Nancy L; Haynes, R Brian (2008) PsycINFO search strategies identified methodologically sound therapy studies and review articles for use by clinicians and researchers. J Clin Epidemiol 61:34-40
Wilczynski, Nancy L; Haynes, R Brian (2007) Response to Corrao et al.: Improving efficacy of PubMed clinical queries for retrieving scientifically strong studies on treatment. J Am Med Inform Assoc 14:247-8
Wong, Sharon S-L; Wilczynski, Nancy L; Haynes, R Brian (2006) Developing optimal search strategies for detecting clinically sound treatment studies in EMBASE. J Med Libr Assoc 94:41-7
Kastner, Monika; Wilczynski, Nancy L; Walker-Dilks, Cindy et al. (2006) Age-specific search strategies for Medline. J Med Internet Res 8:e25
Wong, Sharon S-L; Wilczynski, Nancy L; Haynes, R Brian (2006) Comparison of top-performing search strategies for detecting clinically sound treatment studies and systematic reviews in MEDLINE and EMBASE. J Med Libr Assoc 94:451-5
Wong, Sharon S L; Wilczynski, Nancy L; Haynes, R Brian (2006) Optimal CINAHL search strategies for identifying therapy studies and review articles. J Nurs Scholarsh 38:194-9
Montori, Victor M; Wilczynski, Nancy L; Morgan, Douglas et al. (2005) Optimal search strategies for retrieving systematic reviews from Medline: analytical survey. BMJ 330:68
Haynes, R Brian; McKibbon, K Ann; Wilczynski, Nancy L et al. (2005) Optimal search strategies for retrieving scientifically strong studies of treatment from Medline: analytical survey. BMJ 330:1179

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