Table 5

Retrieval performance of search strategies in SUMSearch and Google Scholar^†

Search strategy

Sensitivity (%)

Specificity (%)

NNR^‡

SUMSearch

Guideline*

81.51 (74.53 to 88.49)

74.29 (72.64 to 75.94)

8.18 (6.90 to 10.05)

Recommendation*

60.50 (51.72 to 69.28)

76.28 (74.67 to 77.89)

9.93 (8.14 to 12.72)

Practice guideline*

40.34 (31.52 to 49.16)

89.45 (88.29 to 90.61)

6.96 (5.52 to 9.43)

Google Scholar

Guideline/s

31.93 (23.56 to 40.30)

78.05 (76.50 to 79.60)

16.67 (12.76 to 24.04)

Recommendation/s

8.40 (3.42 to 13.38)

92.11 (91.09 to 93.13)

22.42 (13.97 to 56.82)

Practice guideline/s

11.76 (5.98 to 17.54)

95.72 (94.96 to 96.48)

9.29 (6.21 to 18.38)

^† 95% confidence intervals in brackets.

^‡ NNR = number needed to read.

* = truncation.

Haase et al. BMC Medical Research Methodology 2007 7:28   doi:10.1186/1471-2288-7-28