Trial reportJournal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA2006
Randomized trial for answers to clinical questions: evaluating a pre-appraised versus a MEDLINE search protocol.
Trial report in Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Decision making in family medicine: randomized trial of the effects of the InfoClinique and Trip database search engines.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2013Trial
- Trial
- Physicians' information-seeking, appraising, and clinical decision-making practices for drug prescriptions: an exploratory study.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2025Article
- Self-reported knowledge, attitudes, practices and barriers in use of evidence-based medicine among resident physicians in Kenya: a mixed methods study.BMC medical education · 2021Article
- Sensitivity and predictive value of 15 PubMed search strategies to answer clinical questions rated against full systematic reviews.Journal of medical Internet research · 2012Review
- Public access and use of health research: an exploratory study of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy using interviews and surveys of health personnel.Journal of medical Internet research · 2011Article
- Problem-oriented drug information: physicians' expectations and impact on clinical practice.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2009Article
- Exploring clinician adoption of a novel evidence request feature in an electronic medical record system.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2008Article
- A comparison of primary care information content in UpToDate and the National Guideline Clearinghouse.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2007Article
- A cross-sectional study evaluating the knowledge, attitude, and practice of evidence-based medicine among resident doctors of a health-care Institution of National Importance in India.Perspectives in clinical researchArticle
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
objectiveThe paper compares the speed, validity, and applicability of two different protocols for searching the primary medical literature.
designA randomized trial involving medicine residents was performed.
settingAn inpatient general medicine rotation was used.
participantsThirty-two internal medicine residents were block randomized into four groups of eight.
main outcome measuresSuccess rate of each search protocol was measured by perceived search time, number of questions answered, and proportion of articles that were applicable and valid.
resultsResidents randomized to the MEDLINE-first (protocol A) group searched 120 questions, and residents randomized to the MEDLINE-last (protocol B) searched 133 questions. In protocol A, 104 answers (86.7%) and, in protocol B, 117 answers (88%) were found to clinical questions. In protocol A, residents reported that 26 (25.2%) of the answers were obtained quickly or rated as "fast" (<5 minutes) as opposed to 55 (51.9%) in protocol B, (P = 0.0004). A subset of questions and articles (n = 79) were reviewed by faculty who found that both protocols identified similar numbers of answer articles that addressed the questions and were felt to be valid using critical appraisal criteria.
conclusionFor resident-generated clinical questions, both protocols produced a similarly high percentage of applicable and valid articles. The MEDLINE-last search protocol was perceived to be faster. However, in the MEDLINE-last protocol, a significant portion of questions (23%) still required searching MEDLINE to find an answer.
Indexed as
Identifiers
17082828PMC1629432What 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.