title: Evaluation of multi-terminology super-concepts for information retrieval.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Following a recent change in the indexing policy for French quality controlled health gateway CISMeF, multiple terminologies are now being used for indexing in addition to MeSH®.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate precision and recall of super-concepts for information retrieval in a multi-terminology paradigm compared to MeSH-only.
  
  
  METHODS
  We evaluate the relevance of resources retrieved by multi-terminology super-concepts and MeSH-only super-concepts queries.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Recall was 8-14% higher for multi-terminology super-concepts compared to MeSH only super-concepts. Precision decreased from 0.66 for MeSH only super-concepts to 0.61 for multi-terminology super-concepts. Retrieval performance was found to vary significantly depending on the super-concepts (p<10-4) and indexing methods (manual vs automatic; p<0.004).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A multi-terminology paradigm contributes to increase recall but lowers precision. Automated tools for indexing are not accurate enough to allow a very precise information retrieval.
authors: CISMeF, Rouen University Hospital, France.
authors: Nicolas
authors: N
authors: Griffon
authors: Lina F
authors: LF
authors: Soualmia
authors: Aurélie
authors: A
authors: Névéol
authors: Philippe
authors: P
authors: Massari
authors: Benoit
authors: B
authors: Thirion
authors: Badisse
authors: B
authors: Dahamna
authors: Stefan J
authors: SJ
authors: Darmoni
mesh_terms: D000043:Abstracting and Indexing; D000465:Algorithms; D002377:Catalogs as Topic; D001330:Electronic Data Processing; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D020407:Internet; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000379:methods*; D046650:Medical Subject Headings; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D009626:Terminology as Topic