ArticleBMC medical informatics and decision making2008
Analysis of queries sent to PubMed at the point of care: observation of search behaviour in a medical teaching hospital.
Article in BMC medical informatics and decision making, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 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
23 citing papers in PubMed.
- Increasing the quantity and quality of searching for current best evidence to answer clinical questions: protocol and intervention design of the MacPLUS FS Factorial Randomized Controlled Trials.Implementation science : IS · 2014Trial
- Comparing patient characteristics, type of intervention, control, and outcome (PICO) queries with unguided searching: a randomized controlled crossover trial.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2012Trial
- Clinician search behaviors may be influenced by search engine design.Journal of medical Internet research · 2010Trial
- Article
- Representation of Social Determinants of Health terminology in medical subject headings: impact of added terms.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2024Article
- Online Searching as a Practice for Evidence-Based Medicine in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, University of Malaya Medical Center, Malaysia: Cross-sectional Study.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- Identification of the Best Semantic Expansion to Query PubMed Through Automatic Performance Assessment of Four Search Strategies on All Medical Subject Heading Descriptors: Comparative Study.JMIR medical informatics · 2020Article
- Automatic identification of recent high impact clinical articles in PubMed to support clinical decision making using time-agnostic features.Journal of biomedical informatics · 2019Article
- Automatic identification of high impact articles in PubMed to support clinical decision making.Journal of biomedical informatics · 2017Article
- Searching for rare diseases in PubMed: a blind comparison of Orphanet expert query and query based on terminological knowledge.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2016Article
- Classification of clinically useful sentences in clinical evidence resources.Journal of biomedical informatics · 2016Article
- 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
- Classification of Clinically Useful Sentences in MEDLINE.AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings. AMIA Symposium · 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
- Comparing data accuracy between structured abstracts and full-text journal articles: implications in their use for informing clinical decisions.Evidence-based medicine · 2013Article
- A study on PubMed search tag usage pattern: association rule mining of a full-day PubMed query log.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2013Article
- Sensitivity and predictive value of 15 PubMed search strategies to answer clinical questions rated against full systematic reviews.Journal of medical Internet research · 2012Review
- Text summarization as a decision support aid.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2012Article
- Rethinking information delivery: using a natural language processing application for point-of-care data discovery.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2012Article
- Performance evaluation of Unified Medical Language System®'s synonyms expansion to query PubMed.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2012Article
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
backgroundThe use of PubMed to answer daily medical care questions is limited because it is challenging to retrieve a small set of relevant articles and time is restricted. Knowing what aspects of queries are likely to retrieve relevant articles can increase the effectiveness of PubMed searches. The objectives of our study were to identify queries that are likely to retrieve relevant articles by relating PubMed search techniques and tools to the number of articles retrieved and the selection of articles for further reading.
methodsThis was a prospective observational study of queries regarding patient-related problems sent to PubMed by residents and internists in internal medicine working in an Academic Medical Centre. We analyzed queries, search results, query tools (Mesh, Limits, wildcards, operators), selection of abstract and full-text for further reading, using a portal that mimics PubMed.
resultsPubMed was used to solve 1121 patient-related problems, resulting in 3205 distinct queries. Abstracts were viewed in 999 (31%) of these queries, and in 126 (39%) of 321 queries using query tools. The average term count per query was 2.5. Abstracts were selected in more than 40% of queries using four or five terms, increasing to 63% if the use of four or five terms yielded 2-161 articles.
conclusionQueries sent to PubMed by physicians at our hospital during daily medical care contain fewer than three terms. Queries using four to five terms, retrieving less than 161 article titles, are most likely to result in abstract viewing. PubMed search tools are used infrequently by our population and are less effective than the use of four or five terms. Methods to facilitate the formulation of precise queries, using more relevant terms, should be the focus of education and research.
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.