Graber M A, Bergus G R, York C
Department of Family Medicine, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, USA.
J Fam Pract. 1999 Jul;48(7):520-4.
The World Wide Web (Web) has the potential to revolutionize information retrieval in medicine. However, the best method of information retrieval from the Web is not known. The purpose of our study was to compare medical search engines, general-purpose search engines, medical meta-lists, and commercial sites on the Web with regard to their efficiency in retrieving medical information.
Ten questions were identified from a database of questions posed by primary care clinicians. Authoritative answers were identified. Searches were performed using 1 commercial site, 4 general search engines, 9 medicine-specific search engines, and 2 medical meta-lists. The main outcome measures were the number of questions answered by each Web site, the correctness of the answers, the number of links followed to get an answer, and how well documented the answer was using the Health on the Net criteria.
MD Consult, a commercial site, answered 6 of 10 questions. Hardin MD (a meta-list) and Excite and HotBot (general search engines) each answered 5 questions. The medicine-specific search engines performed poorly, answering an average of only 1 question. MD Consult and HotBot required the least number of links to find an answer. MD Consult and Hardin MD had the best documented answers.
Medicine-specific search engines on the Web fare poorly in answering clinical questions when compared with general search engines. MD Consult, Excite, HotBot, and Hardin MD found the greatest number of answers.
万维网有潜力彻底改变医学信息检索方式。然而，目前尚不清楚从网上检索信息的最佳方法。我们研究的目的是比较医学搜索引擎、通用搜索引擎、医学元列表以及网上商业网站在检索医学信息方面的效率。
从基层医疗临床医生提出的问题数据库中确定了10个问题，并找到了权威答案。使用1个商业网站、4个通用搜索引擎、9个医学专用搜索引擎和2个医学元列表进行搜索。主要观察指标包括每个网站回答的问题数量、答案的正确性、为获取答案而点击的链接数量，以及根据健康网标准答案的文献记录完善程度。
商业网站MD Consult回答了10个问题中的6个。Hardin MD（一个元列表）以及Excite和HotBot（通用搜索引擎）各回答了5个问题。医学专用搜索引擎表现不佳，平均每个仅回答了1个问题。MD Consult和HotBot找到答案所需的链接数量最少。MD Consult和Hardin MD的答案文献记录最完善。
与通用搜索引擎相比，网上的医学专用搜索引擎在回答临床问题方面表现不佳。MD Consult、Excite、HotBot和Hardin MD找到的答案数量最多。
