Using Medline Filters

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Using Medline Filters

• Foundation Year 2

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Learning objectives

• By the end of the session you will be able to
• Understand the need for high quality evidence
  in search results
• Differentiate between therapy/diagnosis/prognosi
  s questions
• Apply an Evidence Based Quality Filter to
  achieve high quality results

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What are Medline Filters?

• A search term or terms that select studies that
  are the most advanced stages of testing for
  clinical application
• Search words or statements relating to research
  methodology
• Help retrieve clinical effectiveness papers
  when combined with subject terms

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Medline FiltersWhy Bother?

• ..some, (the purists would say up to 99 of)
  published articles belong in the bin and should
  certainly not be used to inform practice.
• Trisha Greenhalgh
• How to Read a Paper, BMJ Books, 2001

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Types of Medline Filters

• Therapy
• Prognosis
• Differential Diagnosis

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Medline FiltersTherapy Questions

• Concerned with treatments for a problem or
  condition. Covers drug treatments, surgical
  procedures, exercise and rehabilitation regimes,
  etc.
• Preferred study design Randomised Controlled
  Trial

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Medline FiltersPrognosis Questions

• Determines what is likely to happen to someone
  once a disease is identified. Identifies
  possible outcomes.
• Preferred study design Cohort Study

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Medline FiltersDifferential Diagnosis Questions

• Demonstrates whether a new diagnostic test is
  valid (can it be trusted?) and reliable (will
  similar results occur each time it is used)
• Preferred study design Cross Sectional Survey

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Simple Medline Filters (Health Information
Research Unit, McMaster University)

• Randomised Controlled Trials
• Select Randomized Controlled Trials in
  Publication Type
• Cohort Studies
• General Search for Cohort Studies
• Cross Sectional Surveys
• General search for Sensitivity and Specificity

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Therapy Example

• What evidence is there regarding the use of
  Botulinum Toxin Type A in treating children (aged
  lt18) with Cerebral Palsy?

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Therapy Example

• P Patient Cerebral Palsy
• I Intervention Botulinum Toxin Type A
• C Comparison ------
• O Outcome ------

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www.library.nhs.uk
Log in with NHS Athens password
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Click on Healthcare Databases Advanced Search
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Select Medline from the list of databases
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This is the search screen
Type in the Search Term and click in the Map to
Thesaurus box and then on search
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Select the term that matches your subject by
clicking in select box. Explode it to retrieve
all items with the subject heading and all
associated narrower MeSH terms.
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Type in your next search term
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(No Transcript)
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Combine selected searches with Boolean AND
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Type the number from your search history in the
search box, select RCT from publication type and
age group
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Now showing 46 hits click on the blue link to
see details
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Indicates availability where purchased
nationally, regionally or locally
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To save results.recommended format is PDF,
Medium and include search history
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To save search strategies, tick the boxes in the
search history or select save all
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Give it a name then it will be saved in My
saved searches or if and alert My saved alerts
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Exercises1Therapy
Can you find any evidence to show that taking
aspirin can prevent migraine attacks.
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Exercise 2 Prognosis
Find papers dealing with the likely-hood of
stroke among patients in their 50s experiencing
Atrial Fibrillation. TIPS Cohort Studies can
be found by performing a general search for the
term cohort studies
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Exercise 3Differential Diagnosis
Find papers in English examining the role of
Procalcitonin in the diagnosis of sepsis. TIPS
Studies addressing differential diagnosis
questions are found by searching for the phrase
sensitivity and specificity
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Evaluative survey

• Thank you for attending today's training
  session. Please could you fill out this brief
  anonymous survey to see if this
  session matched your expectations.
• The survey is available at
• http//tinyurl.com/midyorkslibrary