Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: The task of identifying relevant research is becoming more demanding, particularly for retrieving research on psychosocial as well as pharmacological interventions and for studies using diverse research designs suited to various stages of developing health and social care interventions (Medical Research Council 2008). Search methods must address precision (rejecting unwanted papers) as well as sensitivity (retrieving relevant papers). The advent of web search engines adds a new dimension to the usual searching of bibliographic databases.
Objectives: To review papers reporting empirical studies that compare searching the world wide web with searching bibliographic databases to retrieve health and social care research.
Methods: An ‘ideal’ formula involving 73 search terms (plus truncation variants) in three concept groups on the review topic retrieved over 20,000 hits on just one database. This search was optimised in terms of precision to make it manageable whilst retaining maximum possible sensitivity by eliminating less precise terms in sequence. The search was run on six bibliographic databases and four web search engines to identify papers about empirical studies on searching databases and the world wide web for research on health and social care. Papers were excluded if they did not study the relative merits of databases and web search engines in terms of sensitivity or precision.
Results: Results regarding sensitivity and precision of searching bibliographic databases and the world wide web will be summarised in tabular format. Conclusions regarding constructing search formulae will be summarised in narrative form with examples from papers and drawing on our own search process. Preliminary results suggest that: 1) Number Needed to Read is a readily-understood metric for precision; and 2) web search engines are not sufficiently sensitive or precise to replace bibliographic databases.
Conclusions: Papers will be discussed in the broader theoretical context of ‘satisficing’ in relation to information-seeking behaviour (Prabha 2007; Simon 1956). Conclusions will be drawn for optimising precision of search strategies.
Objectives: To review papers reporting empirical studies that compare searching the world wide web with searching bibliographic databases to retrieve health and social care research.
Methods: An ‘ideal’ formula involving 73 search terms (plus truncation variants) in three concept groups on the review topic retrieved over 20,000 hits on just one database. This search was optimised in terms of precision to make it manageable whilst retaining maximum possible sensitivity by eliminating less precise terms in sequence. The search was run on six bibliographic databases and four web search engines to identify papers about empirical studies on searching databases and the world wide web for research on health and social care. Papers were excluded if they did not study the relative merits of databases and web search engines in terms of sensitivity or precision.
Results: Results regarding sensitivity and precision of searching bibliographic databases and the world wide web will be summarised in tabular format. Conclusions regarding constructing search formulae will be summarised in narrative form with examples from papers and drawing on our own search process. Preliminary results suggest that: 1) Number Needed to Read is a readily-understood metric for precision; and 2) web search engines are not sufficiently sensitive or precise to replace bibliographic databases.
Conclusions: Papers will be discussed in the broader theoretical context of ‘satisficing’ in relation to information-seeking behaviour (Prabha 2007; Simon 1956). Conclusions will be drawn for optimising precision of search strategies.