McMaster University Researchers Develop Better Medical Searches

Researchers at McMaster University have developed a way to find "relevant and scientifically sound studies" from online medical databases.

The article about their effort is found at http://www.medicalpost.com/mpcontent/article.jsp?content=20040523_111944_5200 . From the article: "That was achieved by first developing a list of search terms and phrases that would bring up sound studies, which were matched with a hand search of 161 journal titles from Medline. By consulting librarians and Medline experts, among others, the team next tested more than 5,000 search combinations, executing the searches both by hand and computer to ensure the identified papers would be pulled up."

You can try their search methodology for yourself at http://web.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/static/clinical.shtml . What you'll need to do is specify the category (therapy, diagnosis, etiology, or prognosis) as well as specify whether you want a broad or narrow search. A filter table is available so you can see what's being applied to your query.

I did a narrow search on spinal cord injury with an emphasis on prognosis, and got 710 results. On the results page, you can review the final search query (with filters applied) at the top of the page in the search box.

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