Related Experiment Videos
Content and accuracy of abstracting services: clinical perspective
Hospital Formulary
|June 8, 1988
Summary
This study found that while abstracts offer quick information, they contain significant omissions and errors. Relying solely on abstracts for critical decisions is not advised due to their unreliability.
Area of Science:
- Pharmaceutical Sciences
- Information Science
Background:
- Abstracting services are crucial for disseminating drug information.
- Evaluating the accuracy and completeness of these abstracts is essential for evidence-based practice.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the accuracy of pharmaceutical abstracts by comparing them to original articles.
- To identify omissions and errors in drug therapy and adverse drug reaction abstracts.
Main Methods:
- Fifty-one abstracts from Inpharma, deHaen, IPA, Reactions, and Clin-Alert were compared to original sources.
- Pharmacy students used a standardized checklist to evaluate omissions and errors.
Main Results:
- The overall omission rate was 3.2 errors per abstract.
- IPA abstracts had significantly more omissions for adverse drug reactions compared to Clin-Alert and Reactions.
- Errors occurred in approximately one in every five abstracts, with no significant differences between services.
Conclusions:
- Pharmaceutical abstracts can be useful for timely access to information, especially for foreign language or hard-to-obtain articles.
- However, abstracts should not be the sole basis for decision-making due to documented omissions and errors.
- Users must be aware of the limitations of abstracting services for comprehensive and reliable information retrieval.