ArticleCMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne2012
Impact of PubMed search filters on the retrieval of evidence by physicians.
Article in CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Measuring factors affecting implementation of health innovations: a systematic review of structural, organizational, provider, patient, and innovation level measures.Implementation science : IS · 2013Pooled it
- Article
- The Influence of Medical Expertise and Information Search Skills on Medical Information Searching: Comparative Analysis From a Free Data Set.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Article
- Efficacy improvement in searching MEDLINE database using a novel PubMed visual analytic system: EEEvis.PloS one · 2023Article
- Development and evaluation of a search filter to identify prognostic factor studies in Ovid MEDLINE.BMC medical research methodology · 2022Article
- Development of an efficient search filter to retrieve systematic reviews from PubMed.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2021Article
- Validation of a search strategy for randomized clinical trials related to periodontitis.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2021Article
- The yield and usefulness of PAINArchives of physiotherapy · 2021Article
- A relevance and quality-based ranking algorithm applied to evidence-based medicine.Computer methods and programs in biomedicine · 2020Article
- Physicians' perception of alternative displays of clinical research evidence for clinical decision support - A study with case vignettes.Journal of biomedical informatics · 2017Article
- An automated system for retrieving herb-drug interaction related articles from MEDLINE.AMIA Joint Summits on Translational Science proceedings. AMIA Joint Summits on Translational Science · 2016Article
- Factors affecting scientific productivity of German oral-maxillofacial surgery training centers: a retrospective cohort study.Oral and maxillofacial surgery · 2015Article
- Analysis of PubMed User Sessions Using a Full-Day PubMed Query Log: A Comparison of Experienced and Nonexperienced PubMed Users.JMIR medical informatics · 2015Article
- A search strategy to identify studies on the prognosis of work disability: a diagnostic test framework.BMJ open · 2015Article
- Automated Determination of Publications Related to Adverse Drug Reactions in PubMed.AMIA Joint Summits on Translational Science proceedings. AMIA Joint Summits on Translational Science · 2015Article
- All Information Is Not Equal: Using the Literature Databases PubMed and The Cochrane Library for Identifying the Evidence on Granulocyte Transfusion Therapy.Transfusion medicine and hemotherapy : offizielles Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Transfusionsmedizin und Immunhamatologie · 2014Article
- Retrieving clinical evidence: a comparison of PubMed and Google Scholar for quick clinical searches.Journal of medical Internet research · 2013Article
- Developing topic-specific search filters for PubMed with click-through data.Methods of information in medicine · 2013Article
- Glomerular disease search filters for Pubmed, Ovid Medline, and Embase: a development and validation study.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPhysicians face challenges when searching PubMed for research evidence, and they may miss relevant articles while retrieving too many nonrelevant articles. We investigated whether the use of search filters in PubMed improves searching by physicians.
methodsWe asked a random sample of Canadian nephrologists to answer unique clinical questions derived from 100 systematic reviews of renal therapy. Physicians provided the search terms that they would type into PubMed to locate articles to answer these questions. We entered the physician-provided search terms into PubMed and applied two types of search filters alone or in combination: a methods-based filter designed to identify high-quality studies about treatment (clinical queries "therapy") and a topic-based filter designed to identify studies with renal content. We evaluated the comprehensiveness (proportion of relevant articles found) and efficiency (ratio of relevant to nonrelevant articles) of the filtered and nonfiltered searches. Primary studies included in the systematic reviews served as the reference standard for relevant articles.
resultsThe average physician-provided search terms retrieved 46% of the relevant articles, while 6% of the retrieved articles were relevant (corrected) (the ratio of relevant to nonrelevant articles was 1:16). The use of both filters together produced a marked improvement in efficiency, resulting in a ratio of relevant to nonrelevant articles of 1:5 (16 percentage point improvement; 99% confidence interval 9% to 22%; p < 0.003) with no substantive change in comprehensiveness (44% of relevant articles found; p = 0.55).
interpretationThe use of PubMed search filters improves the efficiency of physician searches. Improved search performance may enhance the transfer of research into practice and improve patient care.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.