Article type
Year
Abstract
Introduction:
Objectives: To determine the precision and sensitivity of searching various sources in order to identify research studies for three specific systematic reviews of intervention effectiveness in public health: parenting groups led by professionals; the use of coalitions in public health; and adolescent sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention.
Methods: We searched: ten core electronic databases from origin-1998 (except Embase, searched 1993- 1998), topic-specific databases, 6 key public health journals by hand 1993-1998, bibliographies of all relevant articles, and we contacted key informants.
Results: Psycinfo yielded the highest precision and sensitivity for the parenting review (12/266 (4.5%), 12/33 (36.4%)). The highest precision and sensitivity for the coalitions review came from bibliographies (9/387 (2.3%), 9/43 (20.9%)). Cinahl was most precise and sensitive for the adolescent STD prevention review (4/615 (0.7%), 4/35 (11.4%)). Topic-specific databases such as Aidsline did not provide a high yield of unique relevant studies. Medline consistently provided a high retrieval but little precision or sensitivity.
Discussion: No one source provides optimal precision or sensitivity across these public health topics. These results provide an initial direction for which sources are most likely to provide unique studies. Future research should include determining the cost per source to provide further information on the utility of each source.
Objectives: To determine the precision and sensitivity of searching various sources in order to identify research studies for three specific systematic reviews of intervention effectiveness in public health: parenting groups led by professionals; the use of coalitions in public health; and adolescent sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention.
Methods: We searched: ten core electronic databases from origin-1998 (except Embase, searched 1993- 1998), topic-specific databases, 6 key public health journals by hand 1993-1998, bibliographies of all relevant articles, and we contacted key informants.
Results: Psycinfo yielded the highest precision and sensitivity for the parenting review (12/266 (4.5%), 12/33 (36.4%)). The highest precision and sensitivity for the coalitions review came from bibliographies (9/387 (2.3%), 9/43 (20.9%)). Cinahl was most precise and sensitive for the adolescent STD prevention review (4/615 (0.7%), 4/35 (11.4%)). Topic-specific databases such as Aidsline did not provide a high yield of unique relevant studies. Medline consistently provided a high retrieval but little precision or sensitivity.
Discussion: No one source provides optimal precision or sensitivity across these public health topics. These results provide an initial direction for which sources are most likely to provide unique studies. Future research should include determining the cost per source to provide further information on the utility of each source.