Table 3

Candidate search terms for MEDLINE

Search Term
Reference Standard retrieved (N = 206)
Total retrieved (N = 1564)
Sensitivity
Precision
Specificity

Controlled Thesaurus Terms
Case-control studies/
2
8
1.0
25.0
99.5
Cohort studies/
5
16
2.4
31.2
99.2
Comparative studies/
106
326
51.5
32.5
83.8
Follow-up studies/
35
135
17.0
25.9
92.6
Prospective studies/
68
240
33.0
28.3
87.3
Retrospective studies/
78
282
37.9
27.7
85.0
Time factors/
15
60
7.3
25.0
96.7
Treatment outcome/
75
323
36.4
23.2
81.7
Case reports.pt
5
393
2.4
1.3
71.4
Clinical trial.pt
25
139
12.1
18.0
91.6
Evaluation studies.pt
12
44
5.8
27.3
97.6
Textwords (.tw)
baseline
16
49
7.8
32.6
97.6
case control$
3
10
1.5
30.0
99.5
case series
28
132
13.6
21.2
92.3
cases
40
223
19.4
17.9
86.5
chang$
56
310
27.2
18.1
81.3
cohort
10
24
4.8
41.7
99.0
compare$ or compara$
98
312
47.6
31.4
84.2
consecutive$
56
163
27.2
34.4
92.1
evaluat$
100
499
48.5
20.0
70.6
follow$
59
272
28.6
21.7
84.3
non compara$ or noncompara$
14
83
6.8
16.9
94.9
non random$ or nonrandom$
19
51
9.2
37.2
97.6
observational
3
22
1.5
13.6
98.6
post operat$ or postoperat$
105
538
51.0
19.5
68.1
pre operat$ or preoperat$
110
454
53.4
24.2
74.7
prospective$
60
216
29.1
27.8
88.5
retrospective$
66
242
32.0
27.3
87.0
reviewed
19
67
9.2
28.4
96.5
MeSH and/or Textword (.mp)
case control
4
12
1.9
33.3
99.4
cohort
11
29
5.3
37.9
98.7
compare$ or compara$
135
464
65.5
29.1
75.8
follow$
68
312
33.0
21.8
82.0
prospective$
69
260
33.5
26.5
85.9
retrospective$
79
296
38.3
26.7
84.0
postoperat$ or post operat$
130
752
63.1
17.3
54.2
preoperat$ or pre operat$
112
466
54.4
24.0
73.9

Key

/ MeSH term

pt Term from publication type field

tw Text word(s) from title and/or abstract fields

mp Term from MeSH and/or title and/or abstract fields.

$ Truncation symbol

Fraser et al. BMC Medical Research Methodology 2006 6:41   doi:10.1186/1471-2288-6-41