Information Services, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Manchester, UK.
Health Info Libr J. 2022 Sep;39(3):225-243. doi: 10.1111/hir.12391. Epub 2021 Aug 19.
Small databases, such as Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC) and Social Policy and Practice (SPP), can add value to systematic searches. Search strategies designed for large databases may not be appropriate in small sources. A different approach to translating strategies could ensure that small databases are searched efficiently.
To establish the contribution HMIC and SPP made to public health guidelines (PHGs); and to recommend an efficient method of translating search strategies.
Eight PHGs were analysed to establish how many included publications were retrieved from HMIC and SPP. Six options for translating strategies from MEDLINE, using variations of free text and subject terms, were compared.
Health Management Information Consortium contributed 15 and SPP eight of the 483 publications cited in the PHGs. The free-text only search was the one option to miss an included publication. The heading word (with truncation) option was more precise than applying subject headings.
There is a risk of missing relevant publications in free-text only searches and it is preferable to include subject terms efficiently.
The heading word (with truncation) option did not miss the evidence included in the PHGs and was the most efficient method for translating MEDLINE to HMIC and SPP.
小型数据库，如健康管理信息联合会（HMIC）和社会政策与实践（SPP），可以为系统检索增加价值。为大型数据库设计的检索策略可能并不适用于小型数据源。采用不同的策略翻译方法可以确保有效检索小型数据库。
确定 HMIC 和 SPP 对公共卫生指南（PHG）的贡献；并推荐一种有效的检索策略翻译方法。
分析了 8 项 PHG，以确定从 HMIC 和 SPP 检索到的包含出版物数量。比较了 6 种从 MEDLINE 翻译策略的选项，包括自由词和主题词的变化。
HMIC 为 483 篇引用文献中的 15 篇，SPP 为 8 篇。仅使用自由词搜索会遗漏纳入的文献。标题词（带截词）选项比应用主题词更精确。
仅使用自由词搜索可能会遗漏相关文献，因此最好有效地包含主题词。
标题词（带截词）选项没有遗漏 PHG 中包含的证据，是将 MEDLINE 转换为 HMIC 和 SPP 最有效的方法。
