Agreement between Medline searches using the Medline-CD-Rom and Internet Pubmed, BioMedNet, Medscape and Gateway search-engines.
OBJECTIVE
To compare the information obtained from the Medline database using Internet commercial search engines with that obtained from a compact disc (Medline-CD).


METHODS
An agreement study was carried out based on 101 clinical scenarios provided by specialists in internal medicine, pharmacy, gynaecology-obstetrics, surgery and paediatrics. 175 search strategies were employed using the connector AND plus text within quotation marks. The search was limited to 1991-1999. Internet search-engines were selected by common criteria. Identical search strategies were independently applied to and masked from Internet search engines, as well as the Medline-CD.


RESULTS
3,488 articles were obtained using 129 search strategies. Agreement with the Medline-CD was 54% for PubMed, 57% for Gateway, 54% for Medscape and 65% for BioMedNet. The highest agreement rate for a given speciality (paediatrics) was 78.1% for BioMedNet, having greater -/- than +/+ agreement.


CONCLUSIONS
Even though free access to Medline has encouraged the boom and growth of evidence-based medicine, these results must be considered within the context of which search engine was selected for doing the searches. The Internet search engines studied showed a poor agreement with the Medline-CD, the rate of agreement differing according to speciality, thus significantly affecting searches and their reproducibility. Software designed for conducting Medline database searches, including the Medline-CD, must be standardised and validated.
Caro-Rojas
Rosa Angela
RA
Química Farmacéutica, Secretaría Distrital de Salud, Bogotá, D C, Colombia. angelacaror@hotmail.com
Eslava-Schmalbach
Javier H
JH
D019992:Databases as Topic; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D020407:Internet; D016239:MEDLINE; D039781:PubMed; D012984:Software