Tanon A A, Champagne F, Contandriopoulos A-P, Pomey M-P, Vadeboncoeur A, Nguyen H
Department of Health Administration, Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal, PO Box 6128, Succ Centre-ville, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Qual Saf Health Care. 2010 Oct;19(5):452-61. doi: 10.1136/qshc.2008.031401. Epub 2010 May 10.
To develop search strategies for identifying papers on patient safety in MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINAHL.
Six journals were electronically searched for papers on patient safety published between 2000 and 2006. Identified papers were divided into two gold standards: one to build and the other to validate the search strategies. Candidate terms for strategy construction were identified using a word frequency analysis of titles, abstracts and keywords used to index the papers in the databases. Searches were run for each one of the selected terms independently in every database. Sensitivity, precision and specificity were calculated for each candidate term. Terms with sensitivity greater than 10% were combined to form the final strategies. The search strategies developed were run against the validation gold standard to assess their performance. A final step in the validation process was to compare the performance of each strategy to those of other strategies found in the literature.
We developed strategies for all three databases that were highly sensitive (range 95%-100%), precise (range 40%-60%) and balanced (the product of sensitivity and precision being in the range of 30%-40%). The strategies were very specific and outperformed those found in the literature.
The strategies we developed can meet the needs of users aiming to maximise either sensitivity or precision, or seeking a reasonable compromise between sensitivity and precision, when searching for papers on patient safety in MEDLINE, EMBASE or CINAHL.
制定检索策略，以在MEDLINE、EMBASE和CINAHL中识别有关患者安全的论文。
通过电子方式检索六种期刊，查找2000年至2006年发表的有关患者安全的论文。将识别出的论文分为两个黄金标准：一个用于构建检索策略，另一个用于验证检索策略。使用对数据库中用于索引论文的标题、摘要和关键词进行词频分析的方法，确定用于构建策略的候选术语。在每个数据库中独立运行针对每个选定术语的检索。计算每个候选术语的敏感度、精准度和特异性。将敏感度大于10%的术语组合起来形成最终策略。将制定的检索策略应用于验证黄金标准，以评估其性能。验证过程的最后一步是将每个策略的性能与文献中发现的其他策略的性能进行比较。
我们为所有三个数据库制定了高度敏感（范围为95%-1）、精准（范围为40%-60%）且平衡（敏感度与精准度的乘积在30%-40%范围内）的策略。这些策略非常具体，且优于文献中发现的策略。
我们制定的策略能够满足用户在MEDLINE、EMBASE或CINAHL中检索有关患者安全的论文时，旨在最大化敏感度或精准度，或在敏感度和精准度之间寻求合理折衷的需求。
