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A search strategy for occupational health intervention studies
J Verbeek1, J Salmi, I Pasternack
1Cochrane Occupational Health Field, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Department of Research and Development of Occupational Health Services, PO Box 93, 70701 Kuopio, Finland. jos.verbeek@ttl.fi
Occupational and Environmental Medicine
|September 20, 2005
Summary
Finding occupational health intervention studies is challenging due to limited search terms. Developing effective search strings with specific keywords can significantly improve discoverability for researchers and practitioners.
Area of Science:
- Occupational Health
- Medical Informatics
- Evidence-Based Practice
Background:
- Locating occupational health intervention studies in electronic databases is difficult due to low numbers and diverse study types.
- Existing search strategies lack sufficient sensitivity and specificity.
- Researchers and practitioners face challenges in identifying relevant occupational health interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and evaluate a comprehensive search strategy for identifying occupational health intervention studies in Medline.
- To enhance the discoverability of occupational health intervention research for both academic and clinical audiences.
- To provide optimized search terms and strings for efficient literature retrieval.
Main Methods:
- A gold standard dataset was created by meticulously reviewing 19 biomedical journals over two volumes.
- Inclusion criteria for occupational health intervention studies included intervention evaluation, occupational health outcomes, and a control group.
- Search terms were identified through expert consultation and frequency analysis of the gold standard articles.
Main Results:
- Out of 11,022 articles, 149 occupational health intervention studies were identified.
- The most sensitive single terms were 'work*' (71% sensitivity) and 'effect*' (75% sensitivity).
- A highly sensitive search string achieved 89% sensitivity and 78% specificity, while a highly specific string had 47% sensitivity and 98% specificity.
Conclusions:
- No single search term adequately identifies occupational health intervention studies.
- Developed search strings offer acceptable sensitivity and specificity for researchers and practitioners.
- Refining Medline keywords could substantially improve the identification of occupational health intervention studies.