Schuers Matthieu, Joulakian Mher, Kerdelhué Gaetan, Segas Léa, Grosjean Julien, Darmoni Stéfan J, Griffon Nicolas
Department of Biomedical Informatics, Rouen University Hospital, Rue de Germont, 76031, Rouen Cedex, France.
TIBS, LITIS EA 4108, Rouen University, Rouen, France.
BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2017 Jul 3;17(1):94. doi: 10.1186/s12911-017-0490-9.
MEDLINE is the most widely used medical bibliographic database in the world. Most of its citations are in English and this can be an obstacle for some researchers to access the information the database contains. We created a multilingual query builder to facilitate access to the PubMed subset using a language other than English. The aim of our study was to assess the impact of this multilingual query builder on the quality of PubMed queries for non-native English speaking physicians and medical researchers.
A randomised controlled study was conducted among French speaking general practice residents. We designed a multi-lingual query builder to facilitate information retrieval, based on available MeSH translations and providing users with both an interface and a controlled vocabulary in their own language. Participating residents were randomly allocated either the French or the English version of the query builder. They were asked to translate 12 short medical questions into MeSH queries. The main outcome was the quality of the query. Two librarians blind to the arm independently evaluated each query, using a modified published classification that differentiated eight types of errors.
Twenty residents used the French version of the query builder and 22 used the English version. 492 queries were analysed. There were significantly more perfect queries in the French group vs. the English group (respectively 37.9% vs. 17.9%; p < 0.01). It took significantly more time for the members of the English group than the members of the French group to build each query, respectively 194 sec vs. 128 sec; p < 0.01.
This multi-lingual query builder is an effective tool to improve the quality of PubMed queries in particular for researchers whose first language is not English.
MEDLINE是世界上使用最广泛的医学文献数据库。其大多数引文为英文，这可能成为一些研究人员获取该数据库所含信息的障碍。我们创建了一个多语言查询构建器，以方便使用英语以外的语言访问PubMed子集。我们研究的目的是评估这个多语言查询构建器对非英语母语的医生和医学研究人员的PubMed查询质量的影响。
在说法语的全科住院医师中进行了一项随机对照研究。我们基于可用的医学主题词（MeSH）翻译设计了一个多语言查询构建器，以促进信息检索，并为用户提供用其母语的界面和控制词汇。参与的住院医师被随机分配使用查询构建器的法语版或英语版。他们被要求将12个简短的医学问题翻译成MeSH查询。主要结果是查询的质量。两名对分组情况不知情的图书馆员使用一种经过修改的已发表分类法独立评估每个查询，该分类法区分了八种错误类型。
20名住院医师使用了查询构建器的法语版，22名使用了英语版。共分析了492个查询。法语组的完美查询显著多于英语组（分别为37.9%对17.9%；p<0.01）。英语组的成员构建每个查询所花费的时间显著多于法语组的成员，分别为194秒对128秒；p<0.01。
这个多语言查询构建器是提高PubMed查询质量的有效工具，特别是对于母语不是英语的研究人员。
