Reliability of Medline searches for dental randomised controlled trials

Abstract

Objective To determine the validity of Medline searches for randomised controlled trials in dental research (RCT-Ds) using the medical subject headings (MeSH-terms). Design The Medline database was searched for randomised controlled trials in dental research (RCT-Ds) published in 1999 and with MeSH-terms corresponding to different areas of dental research. All RCT-Ds were manually examined for relevance to the different areas of dental research and cross-tabulated against the Medline search results. The sensitivity, specificity, positive (precision) and negative predictive values, as well as the accuracy of the search results were calculated. Results The highest validity in the Medline searches for RCT-Ds was seen for endodontics, followed by orthodontics, whereas the lowest validity was seen for pediatric dentistry and public health dentistry. For pediatric dentistry the MeSH-term searches had too low a sensitivity for adequate location of RCT-Ds. Conclusions MeSH-term searches on Medline are a useful tool for rapid location of RCT-Ds in most areas of dental research. However, there is a vast variation in the search validity. More refined search strategies are required to locate RCT-Ds in areas of dental research with low search validity.