Introduction: Different search strategies for diagnosis are suggested during the past years. The predictive value of these strategies for the identification of publications about diagnostic test evaluations remains however quite low.

Methods: An efficient search strategy - subject independent - was developed by screening 9 journals on family medicine available in Medline from 1992 through 1995. The 'gold standard' were the Haynes searches for 1991 (the sensitive one and the specific one combined), published elsewhere.

Results: The search resulted in 306 abstracts, wherefrom 193 of primary papers. Abstracts were classified in clearly diagnostic field were identified, as were textwords also relevant for this field. With a logistic regression analysis a predictive model was developed of a combination of MESH terms only and one including textwords. The last one had a sensitivity of 95% and a specificity of 89% using only three terms: exploding sensitivity and specificity, and the textwords specificity and likelihood ration.

Discussion: This strategy will further be validated in another set of journals.