Abstract
BackgroundHealthcare information professionals play a key role in closing the knowledge gap between medical research and clinical practice. Their work involves meticulous searching of literature databases using complex search strategies that can consist of hundreds of keywords, operators, and ontology terms. This process is prone to error and can lead to inefficiency and bias if performed incorrectly.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to investigate the search behavior of healthcare information professionals, uncovering their needs, goals, and requirements for information retrieval systems.MethodsA survey was distributed to healthcare information professionals via professional association email discussion lists. It investigated the search tasks they undertake, their techniques for search strategy formulation, their approaches to evaluating search results, and their preferred functionality for searching library-style databases. The popular literature search system PubMed was then evaluated to determine the extent to which their needs were met.ResultsThe 107 respondents indicated that their information retrieval process relied on the use of complex, repeatable, and transparent search strategies. On average it took 60 minutes to formulate a search strategy, with a search task taking 4 hours and consisting of 15 strategy lines. Respondents reviewed a median of 175 results per search task, far more than they would ideally like (100). The most desired features of a search system were merging search queries and combining search results.ConclusionsHealthcare information professionals routinely address some of the most challenging information retrieval problems of any profession. However, their needs are not fully supported by current literature search systems and there is demand for improved functionality, in particular regarding the development and management of search strategies.
Highlights
BackgroundMedical knowledge is growing so rapidly that it is difficult for healthcare professionals to keep up
Respondents reviewed a median of 175 results per search task, far more than they would ideally like (100)
Survey respondents were recruited by sending an email invitation with a link to the survey to 5 healthcare professional association mailing lists that deal with systematic reviews and medical librarianship: Lis-Medical [24], clinical librarians [25], evidence-based health [26], expert searching [27], and the Cochrane Information Retrieval Methods Group (IRMG) [28]
Summary
BackgroundMedical knowledge is growing so rapidly that it is difficult for healthcare professionals to keep up. Healthcare information professionals play the primary role in closing the gap between published research and medical practice, by synthesizing the complex, incomplete, and at times http://medinform.jmir.org/2017/3/e33/ XSLFO RenderX. The systematic strategies that often consist of hundreds of keywords, operators, literature review process relies on the painstaking and meticulous and ontology terms [7] (Textbox 1). Healthcare information professionals play a key role in closing the knowledge gap between medical research and clinical practice. Their work involves meticulous searching of literature databases using complex search strategies that can consist of hundreds of keywords, operators, and ontology terms. This process is prone to error and can lead to inefficiency and bias if performed incorrectly
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