Glanville Julie M, Lefebvre Carol, Miles Jeremy N V, Camosso-Stefinovic Janette
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom.
J Med Libr Assoc. 2006 Apr;94(2):130-6.
The researchers sought to assess whether the widely used 1994 Cochrane Highly Sensitive Search Strategy (HSSS) for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in MEDLINE could be improved in terms of sensitivity, precision, or parsimony.
A gold standard of 1,347 RCT records and a comparison group of 2,400 non-trials were randomly selected from MEDLINE. Terms occurring in at least 1% of RCT records were identified. Fifty percent of the RCT and comparison group records were randomly selected, and the ability of the terms to discriminate RCTs from non-trial records was determined using logistic regression. The best performing combinations of terms were tested on the remaining records and in MEDLINE.
The best discriminating term was "Clinical Trial" (Publication Type). In years where the Cochrane assessment of MEDLINE records had taken place, the strategies identified few additional unindexed records of trials. In years where Cochrane assessment has yet to take place, "Randomized Controlled Trial" (Publication Type) proved highly sensitive and precise. Adding six more search terms identified further, unindexed trials at reasonable levels of precision and with sensitivity almost equal to the Cochrane HSSS.
Most reports of RCTs in MEDLINE can now be identified easily using "Randomized Controlled Trial" (Publication Type). More sensitive searches can be achieved by a brief strategy, the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination/Cochrane Highly Sensitive Search Strategy (2005 revision).
研究人员试图评估广泛使用的1994年Cochrane高灵敏度检索策略（HSSS）用于检索MEDLINE中随机对照试验（RCT）时，在灵敏度、精准度或简洁性方面是否能够得到改进。
从MEDLINE中随机选取1347条RCT记录作为金标准，以及2400条非试验记录作为对照组。确定至少出现在1%的RCT记录中的检索词。随机选取50%的RCT记录和对照组记录，使用逻辑回归确定这些检索词区分RCT与非试验记录的能力。在其余记录以及MEDLINE中对表现最佳的检索词组合进行测试。
最佳区分检索词为“临床试验”（出版物类型）。在对MEDLINE记录进行Cochrane评估的年份中，这些检索策略识别出的未编入索引的试验记录很少。在尚未进行Cochrane评估的年份中，“随机对照试验”（出版物类型）被证明具有高度的灵敏度和精准度。再增加六个检索词可在合理的精准度水平上识别出更多未编入索引的试验，且灵敏度几乎与Cochrane HSSS相当。
现在使用“随机对照试验”（出版物类型）能够轻松识别MEDLINE中大多数RCT报告。通过一种简洁的策略，即综述与传播中心/Cochrane高灵敏度检索策略（2005年修订版），可以实现更灵敏的检索。
