Jenuwine, ES; Floyd, J "Comparison of Medical Subject Headings and text-word searches in MEDLINE to retrieve studies on sleep in healthy individuals" JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 92 (3). JUL 2004. p.349-353 MEDICAL LIBRARY ASSOC, CHICAGO

[Eugene Garfield]

Elizabeth S. Jenuwine: aa8696 at wayne.edu;
Judith A. Floyd: ab9208 at wayne.edu

FULL TEXT AVAILABLE AT :
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=442177

TITLE:          Comparison of Medical Subject Headings and text-word
                searches in MEDLINE to retrieve studies on sleep in healthy
                individuals  (Article, English)
AUTHOR:         Jenuwine, ES; Floyd, JA
SOURCE:         JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 92 (3). JUL
                2004. p.349-353 MEDICAL LIBRARY ASSOC, CHICAGO

SEARCH TERM(S):  J INFORM SCI*  rwork; J MED LIBR ASSOC  source_abbrev_20

KEYWORDS+:       RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED-TRIALS; STRATEGY

ABSTRACT:       Objective: The objective was to investigate the
performance of two search strategies in the retrieval of primary research
papers containing descriptive information on the sleep of healthy people
from MEDLINE.

Methodology: Two search strategies-me based on the use of only Medical
Subject Headings (MeSH), the second based on text-word searching-were
evaluated as to their specificity and sensitivity in retrieving a set of
relevant research papers published in the journal Sleep from 1996 to 2001
that were preselected by a hand search.

Results: The subject search provided higher specificity than the text-
word search (66% and 47%, respectively) but lower sensitivity (78% for
the subject search versus 88% for the text-word search). Each search
strategy gave some unique relevant hits.

Conclusions: The two search strategies complemented each other and should
be used together for maximal retrieval. No combination of MeSH terms
could provide comprehensive yet reasonably precise retrieval of relevant
articles. The text-word searching had sensitivity and specificity
comparable to the subject search. In addition, use of text words
"normal..... healthy," and "control" in the title or abstract fields to
limit the final sets provided an efficient way to increase the
specificity of both search strategies.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: ES Jenuwine, Wayne State Univ, 5557 Cass Ave,Room 300,
                Detroit, MI 48202 USA