Table 3 Candidate search terms for MEDLINE
From: Identifying observational studies of surgical interventions in MEDLINE and EMBASE
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 |