Institute for Quality Assurance and Transparency in Healthcare (IQTIG), Katharina-Heinroth-Ufer 1, 10787 Berlin, Germany.
Institute for Quality Assurance and Transparency in Healthcare (IQTIG), Katharina-Heinroth-Ufer 1, 10787 Berlin, Germany.
J Clin Epidemiol. 2020 Apr;120:17-24. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2019.12.008. Epub 2019 Dec 18.
Several search filters exist to identify qualitative research, but so far none of them has been validated with an independent set of relevant references irrespective of a medical topic. The objective of this study was to provide a comparative overview of validation results for various MEDLINE search filters.
Search filters were tested for plausibility. A relative recall approach was used to generate a gold standard based on an overview of systematic reviews of qualitative studies. For each review, the included qualitative studies were collected and checked for MEDLINE-indexing. The body of indexed articles yielded the gold standard. Validation tests were conducted to determine whether the references of the gold standard could be identified with the respective search filters.
Thirteen search filters were validated in MEDLINE. One search filter by Wong et al. (2004) was found to be the most sensitive (93.63%). While medical subject heading "qualitative research" achieved the best precision (2.15%), sensitivity was the lowest (22.56%). University of Texas provided the best balanced search filter with a sensitivity of 81.96% and a precision of 0.80%.
Search filters to identify qualitative research in MEDLINE differ greatly in design and performance. The selection of the appropriate search filter depends on project-specific demands and resources.
有几种搜索筛选器可用于识别定性研究，但到目前为止，还没有一种筛选器在不考虑医学主题的情况下，通过独立的相关参考文献进行验证。本研究的目的是提供对各种 MEDLINE 搜索筛选器验证结果的比较概述。
对搜索筛选器进行了合理性测试。采用相对召回率方法，根据对定性研究系统评价的概述，生成一个黄金标准。对于每一篇综述，收集纳入的定性研究并检查 MEDLINE 索引情况。索引文章的主体产生了黄金标准。验证测试旨在确定黄金标准的参考文献是否可以通过各自的搜索筛选器识别。
在 MEDLINE 中验证了 13 种搜索筛选器。Wong 等人（2004 年）的一种搜索筛选器被发现具有最高的敏感性（93.63%）。虽然主题词“定性研究”的精确度最高（2.15%），但敏感性最低（22.56%）。德克萨斯大学的搜索筛选器提供了最佳的平衡搜索效果，敏感性为 81.96%，精确度为 0.80%。
用于在 MEDLINE 中识别定性研究的搜索筛选器在设计和性能上存在很大差异。选择合适的搜索筛选器取决于特定项目的需求和资源。
