title: Improving efficacy of PubMed Clinical Queries for retrieving scientifically strong studies on treatment.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Department of Internal Medicine, Piazza delle Cliniche 2, 90127 Palermo, Italy. s.corrao@tiscali.it
authors.forename: Salvatore
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Corrao
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Colomba
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Arnone
authors.forename: Christiano
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Argano
authors.forename: Tiziana
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Di Chiara
authors.forename: Rosario
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Scaglione
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Licata
mesh_terms: D000043:Abstracting and Indexing; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D039781:PubMed; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic