Optimal search strategies for identifying mental health content in MEDLINE: an analytic survey

Author:

Wilczynski Nancy L,Haynes R Brian,

Abstract

Abstract Objective General practitioners, mental health practitioners, and researchers wishing to retrieve the best current research evidence in the content area of mental health may have a difficult time when searching large electronic databases such as MEDLINE. When MEDLINE is searched unaided, key articles are often missed while retrieving many articles that are irrelevant to the search. The objectives of this study were to develop optimal search strategies to detect articles with mental health content and to determine the effect of combining mental health content search strategies with methodologic search strategies calibrated to detect the best studies of treatment. Method An analytic survey was conducted, comparing hand searches of 29 journals with retrievals from MEDLINE for 3,395 candidate search terms and 11,317 combinations. The sensitivity, specificity, precision, and accuracy of the search strategies were calculated. Results 3,277 (26.8%) of the 12,233 articles classified in the 29 journals were considered to be of interest to the discipline area of mental health. Search term combinations reached peak sensitivities of 98.4% with specificity at 50.0%, whereas combinations of search terms to optimize specificity reached peak specificities of 97.1% with sensitivity at 51.7%. Combining content search strategies with methodologic search strategies for treatment led to improved precision: substantive decreases in the number of articles that needed to be sorted through in order to find target articles. Conclusion Empirically derived search strategies can achieve high sensitivity and specificity for retrieving mental health content from MEDLINE. Combining content search strategies with methodologic search strategies led to more precise searches.

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Subject

Psychiatry and Mental health

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3