Search

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the performance of three search methods in the retrieval of relevant clinical trials from PubMed to answer specific clinical questions., Methods: Included studies of a sample of 100 Cochrane reviews which recorded in PubMed were considered as the reference standard. The search queries were formulated based on the systematic review titles. Precision, recall and number of retrieved records for limiting the results to clinical trial publication type, and using sensitive and specific clinical queries filters were compared. The number of keywords, presence of specific names of intervention and syndrome in the search keywords were used in a model to predict the recalls and precisions., Results: The Clinical queries-sensitive search strategy retrieved the largest number of records (33) and had the highest recall (41.6%) and lowest precision (4.8%). The presence of specific intervention name was the only significant predictor of all recalls and precisions (P = 0.016)., Conclusion: The recall and precision of combination of simple clinical search queries and methodological search filters to find clinical trials in various subjects were considerably low. The limit field strategy yielded in higher precision and fewer retrieved records and approximately similar recall, compared with the clinical queries-sensitive strategy. Presence of specific intervention name in the search keywords increased both recall and precision., (© 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Introduction: One major barrier to develop health systems is the limited capacity for conducting research and implementation of research findings. We assessed the views of researchers, decision makers and research policy makers on how the development and usage of evidence from systematic reviews can be promoted in a country with limited resources., Methods: We surveyed 131 participants in six systematic review workshops for their views on important items influencing the production and usage of systematic reviews in a developing country. They were also asked to propose interventions to deal with potential barriers. We analysed the quantitative data using multidimensional scaling methods, and the qualitative data using content analysis approach., Results: We identified seven clusters of items that contribute to the promotion of conducting and using systematic reviews. For each cluster a set of interventions are proposed that health care decision makers and research policy makers may use for promoting conduct and use of systematic reviews. The clusters are 'importance for policy makers', 'access to international research', 'priority and support for systematic reviews', 'competency and willingness of researchers to conduct reviews', 'importance for end-users', 'quality of local primary research' and 'visibility and access to local research'., Discussion: The proposed interventions focus on national level initiatives for making the systematic reviews 'wanted' and improving the capacity to conduct research. Our findings emphasize the essential role of policy makers for promoting systematic reviews. They demonstrate that many barriers stem from the lower quality of and lack of access to primary research originating from developing countries.

Objectives: To determine the most important knowledge sources that can influence clinical practice and to cluster them in conceptual groups based on their relative importance., Methods: Faculty members, fellows and residents of a large teaching tertiary care hospital were asked to rate the importance of different resources in their daily clinical practice and their understanding of some common terms from evidence-based medicine. The knowledge sources were distributed in a two-dimensional map using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis., Results: A total of 250 of 320 recruited hospital staff returned the questionnaires. The most important resources in daily practice were English journals, text books and literature searching for faculty members, experience, text books and English journals for fellows and text books, experience and peers for residents. Regional journals were the least important resources for all study groups. About 62.7% of residents did not know the meaning of 'number needed to treat', 36.8%'confidence interval', 54.9%'confounding factor' and 44.6%'meta-analysis'. The percentages for faculty members were 41.3%, 37%, 42.2% and 39.1%. The knowledge sources were placed in four clusters in a point map derived from the multidimensional scaling process., Conclusion: The dominance of the traditional information resources and experience-based medicine debate which is the consequence of traditional approaches to medical education may be one of the considerable barriers to the dissemination of evidence-based medicine in developing countries. The evidence-based clinical practice guidelines could be used as a useful passive-predigested source for busy clinicians to make informed decisions. A considerable Western bias may undermine the local research in developing world.