ArticleBMC medical informatics and decision making2005
An overview of the design and methods for retrieving high-quality studies for clinical care.
Article in BMC medical informatics and decision making, 2005. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 10 of them syntheses 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
50 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Intermittent fasting strategies and their effects on body weight and other cardiometabolic risk factors: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Pooled it
- Effect of honey on cardiometabolic risk factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Nutrition reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Fructose-containing food sources and blood pressure: A systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled feeding trials.PloS one · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Different Food Sources of Fructose-Containing Sugars and Fasting Blood Uric Acid Levels: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Controlled Feeding Trials.The Journal of nutrition · 2021Pooled it
- Effect of low glycaemic index or load dietary patterns on glycaemic control and cardiometabolic risk factors in diabetes: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2021Pooled it
- Food sources of fructose-containing sugars and glycaemic control: systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled intervention studies.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2018Pooled it
- The Effect of Small Doses of Fructose and Its Epimers on Glycemic Control: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Controlled Feeding Trials.Nutrients · 2018Pooled it
- Search strategies to identify information on adverse effects: a systematic review.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2009Pooled it
- Understanding Transformer-Based Classifications of Medical Text Using a Large Language Model for the Attribution of Feature Importance: Proof-of-Concept Algorithm Development and Validation Study.JMIR medical informatics · 2026Article
- Article
- Zero-shot interpretable biomedical literature appraisal with generative large language models.JAMIA open · 2026Article
- Retrieving Transgender and Gender Diverse Literature: Protocol for the Development and Validation of 2 Search Hedges.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Boosting efficiency in a clinical literature surveillance system with LightGBM.PLOS digital health · 2024Article
- The McMaster Health Information Research Unit: Over a Quarter-Century of Health Informatics Supporting Evidence-Based Medicine.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Automated Category and Trend Analysis of Scientific Articles on Ophthalmology Using Large Language Models: Development and Usability Study.JMIR formative research · 2024Article
- Search strategies (filters) to identify systematic reviews in MEDLINE and Embase.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Review
- Automating Quality Assessment of Medical Evidence in Systematic Reviews: Model Development and Validation Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Article
- Focus on PD-1/PD-L1 as a Therapeutic Target in Ovarian Cancer.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWith the information explosion, the retrieval of the best clinical evidence from large, general purpose, bibliographic databases such as MEDLINE can be difficult. Both researchers conducting systematic reviews and clinicians faced with a patient care question are confronted with the daunting task of searching for the best medical literature in electronic databases. Many have advocated the use of search filters or "hedges" to assist with the searching process. The purpose of this report is to describe the design and methods of a study that set out to develop optimal search strategies for retrieving sound clinical studies of health disorders in large electronics databases.
objectiveTo describe the design and methods of a study that set out to develop optimal search strategies for retrieving sound clinical studies of health disorders in large electronic databases.
designAn analytic survey comparing hand searches of 170 journals in the year 2000 with retrievals from MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO for candidate search terms and combinations. The sensitivity, specificity, precision, and accuracy of unique search terms and combinations of search terms were calculated.
conclusionA study design modeled after a diagnostic testing procedure with a gold standard (the hand search of the literature) and a test (the search terms) is an effective way of developing, testing, and validating search strategies for use in large electronic databases.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion 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 OpenQuestion graph.