Search strings for the study of putative occupational determinants of disease.
OBJECTIVE
To identify efficient PubMed search strategies to retrieve articles regarding putative occupational determinants of conditions not generally considered to be work related.


METHODS
Based on MeSH definitions and expert knowledge, we selected as candidate search terms the four MeSH terms describing 'occupational disease', 'occupational exposure', 'occupational health' and 'occupational medicine' (DEHM) alongside 22 other promising terms. We first explored overlaps between the candidate terms in PubMed. Using random samples of abstracts retrieved by each term, we estimated the proportions of articles containing potentially pertinent information regarding occupational aetiology in order to formulate two search strategies (one more 'specific', one more 'sensitive'). We applied these strategies to retrieve information on the possible occupational aetiology of meningioma, pancreatitis and atrial fibrillation.


RESULTS
Only 20.3% of abstracts were retrieved by more than one DEHM term. The more 'specific' search string was based on the combination of terms that yielded the highest proportion (40%) of potentially pertinent abstracts. The more 'sensitive' string was based on the use of broader search fields and additional coverage provided by other search terms under study. Using the specific string, the numbers of abstracts needed to read to find one potentially pertinent article were 1.2 for meningioma, 1.9 for pancreatitis and 1.8 for atrial fibrillation. Using the sensitive strategy, the numbers needed to read were 4.4 for meningioma, 8.9 for pancreatitis and 10.5 for atrial fibrillation.


CONCLUSIONS
The proposed strings could help health care professionals explore putative occupational aetiology for diseases that are not generally thought to be work related.
Mattioli
Stefano
S
Unità Operativa di Medicina del Lavoro, Dipartimento di Medicina Interna, dell'Invecchiamento e Malattie Nefrologiche, Università di Bologna, Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi, Via Pelagio Palagi 9, Bologna, Italy.
Zanardi
Francesca
F
Baldasseroni
Alberto
A
Schaafsma
Frederieke
F
Cooke
Robin M T
RM
Mancini
Gianpiero
G
Fierro
Mauro
M
Santangelo
Chiara
C
Farioli
Andrea
A
Fucksia
Serenella
S
Curti
Stefania
S
Violante
Francesco S
FS
Verbeek
Jos
J
D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000209:etiology*; D016273:Occupational Exposure; D039781:PubMed