An Internet Search Guide for Health Care Professionals

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An Internet Search Guide for Health Care
Professionals

• Interactive tutorial

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Goal and Objective

• The goal of this interactive tutorial is to help
  health care professionals save their time (and
  money) and retrieve needed information in a most
  efficient and information literate way.
• At the completion of the tutorial (which will
  take about 10 minutes) the students with even
  minimal web searching skills will be able to
  distinguish between Internet Directories and
  Search Engines, weigh their advantages and
  disadvantages, choose the appropriate search
  strategy and critically evaluate the retrieved
  websites.

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Table of Contents

• Selecting the Search Tool
• Internet Directories
• Search Engines
• Search Strategies
• Matching Exact Phrase
• Truncation or Wild Card
• Boolean Operators
• Case Sensitivity
• Evaluating Internet resources
• Authority
• Objectivity
• Accuracy
• Currency
• Coverage

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Selecting the Search Tool

• The two major tools used for searching for
  specific information on the Web are INTERNET
  DIRECTORIES and INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES. Each
  has its own advantages and disadvantages, and
  should be chosen at the right time. Recently the
  differences between them have become less clear
  due to the continuous development of the Web
  some directories now contain an internal search
  engine or offer links to web search engines.

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Internet Directories

• provide selected and categorized information
• most useful when you have a specific topic in
  mind or want to get a general idea about what's
  available on a subject
• can include reviews or a rating system of the
  selected resources
• retrieve fewer documents than search engines, but
  usually less false hits
• directories are basically collections of Web
  links. They are not comprehensive indexes to huge
  database of web documents, but rather catalogs of
  selected material.

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Internet Directories (continue
)

• Some directories such as Yahoo, contain general
  information on a wide variety of subjects. Other
  directories, like Healthweb, contain material
  related to a specific subject area such as
  nursing. Take a look at each to see the
  differences between the general and specific.
  Recommended Internet Directories for health care
  resources
• Medical Matrix (Requires registration but free)
• MedlinePlus (Created for non-professionals, but a
  useful starting point for anyone looking for
  information on diseases)
• Yahoo (a very general extensive directory)

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Internet Search Engines

• retrieve many more hits than directories because
  of the number of documents included in the
  database, but with a higher probability for false
  hits
• especially useful for finding unusual words and
  less common subjects
• allow extensive use of search language to target
  information
• the most relevant documents are retrieved first
• retrieve items that match the words keyed in but
  do not take into consideration the context

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Internet Search Engines (continue)

• Search engines are basically programs that
  quickly searches huge databases of words selected
  from web documents. A part of the search engine
  sometimes known as a robot, spider or crawler
  continuously works at building a database by
  examining new documents at web sites, and
  revisiting previously scanned documents.
• It is important to understand that search engines
  use words and phrases to retrieve information,
  and not concepts. For example searching for
  insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) will
  also retrieve some resources on non-insulin
  dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) because the
  engine is searching for the words keyed-in and
  not for the disease concept.

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Internet Search Engines (continue)

• The "spider" is programmed to select words from
  certain parts of a web document, or from the
  entire document. You may need to use several
  search engines for the most comprehensive and
  accurate retrieval. The results will vary because
  of the way the "spider" works.
• Some Recommended Internet Search Engines
• Google
• Alta Vista
• HotBot

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Review Questions 1

• If you have a particular subject in mind or want
  to retrieve fewer but more accurate documents,
  you will choose
• Internet Directory
• Search Engine
• To retrieve material related to a specific
  subject area such as nursing you will use
• Alta Vista
• Healthweb
• HotBot
• To retrieve information, search engines use
• concepts
• words and phrases

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Correct!

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• OOPS!
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Search Strategies

• Here are a few helpful hints on how to design
  your strategy more efficiently in order to target
  the exact information
• Before you start your searching, read all
  available "help" documentation. Go through any
  help screens to find out how a particular search
  engine requires a search query to be entered on
  the provided forms. It will minimize mysterious
  retrieval results, and better target relevant
  documents.
• Not all search engines use the same search
  strategies or symbols. Do not assume because a
  symbol works in Northern Light that it will also
  work in Google.
• Strategies for a basic search may be different
  than those for an advanced search.
• Remember that a particular search engine may
  change overnight!!!!

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Search Strategies (continue)

• Sometimes it is important to search using
  Matching Exact Phrase as a whole, rather than
  retrieving information about each individual word
  (as is often the default with a particular search
  engine). Read help screens to find out what to
  use - parentheses, quotation marks or a pull down
  menu - to target an exact phrase.
• Some examples of when an exact phrase search
  would be appropriate
• Finding information about an organization or
  association e.g. American Medical Association
• Targeting a particular disease, diagnosis, or
  therapy e.g. Graves Disease
• Targeting a group of words most often used in an
  exact order, and which will retrieve many false
  hits if searched separately e.g. health
  maintenance organizations

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Search Strategies (continue)

• Truncation or Wild Card symbol is used at the
  end, beginning or middle of a word to search for
  word variations. Read any help screens for
  information on truncation symbols accepted by a
  specific engine. The most common symbols used are
  , and ?. In some engines truncation may be
  automatic, retrieving documents less than
  relevant to the search. For ex.,
• Right sided truncation--Eg occlu will also find
  occlusive, occluding, occludes, occluded... Good
  for searching plural as well as singular forms of
  a word.
• Left sided truncation--Eg phobia will find
  agoraphobia, homophobia, claustrophobia...
• Middle of word truncation--Eg womn will find
  both woman and women

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(continue)

• Many search engines use Boolean operators such as
  AND, OR, NOT for combining of words and
  concepts. Some search engines require the
  operators to be in all caps, others do not.
• Check the help screens for the availability of
  operators in a particular engine. Do not assume
  that an engine will automatically retrieve all of
  the words keyed-in or in a specific word order.
• AND will retrieve documents with all of the words
  present though not necessarily next to each
  other. e.g. graves AND disease will retrieve
  documents containing both the words graves and
  disease, though not necessarily the phrase graves
  disease.

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(continue)

• OR will retrieve documents with any of the words
  present. This type of search is especially useful
  for combining a number of synonyms in a search.
  For example, Prozac OR fluoxetine will retrieve
  all documents no matter how the author has
  referred to this particular drug in the web page.
  
• NOT will retrieve documents with some of the
  words present but not others. e.g. pig NOT
  guinea.
• ADJ, NEAR, WITHIN are proximity operators and
  will assist in retrieving documents with words in
  a certain position in a sentence or next to each
  other. e.g. smoking NEAR children

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(continue)

• Most search engines are not case sensitive, but
  sometimes it is important to capitalize the
  letters for the most accurate retrieval.
  Resources retrieved will only be those which
  contain the word(s) searched for in exactly the
  manner entered into the database. (AIDS will
  retrieve a different set of resources than aids).
  Read the available help screens for a specific
  engine.
• For example, try searching for dB (referring to
  decibel) in HotBot, then try searching for db or
  DB. The of retrieved results will be
  significantly different and the search for dB
  more focused on the desired topic than the
  searches on db or DB.
• Acronyms also can be used to retrieve exact
  information because they will be searched as a
  word (e.g. HMOs for health maintenance
  organizations). Note that a search for AMA (the
  American Medical Association) will retrieve at
  the same time sites related to the American
  Motorcycle Association and American Management
  Association.

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Review Questions 2

• 1. Before you started searching, remember that
• To read Help Information is a waste of time
• All search engines use the same search strategies
  and symbols
• None of the above
• 2. To retrieve more efficiently information about
  health maintenance organizations, you will use
• Boolean logic
• Truncation
• Exact phrase search technique
• 3. The most common symbols for truncation or
  wildcard are
• , , and ?.
• , , and
• 4. To retrieve information about Prozac and
  fluoxetine, you will use
• OR
• AND
• NEAR

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Correct!

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Evaluating Internet Resources

• Evaluation of information found on the Internet
  is necessary because the quality of Web resources
  varies tremendously. Resources retrieved from the
  Web for professional use should be held to the
  same high standards as required by other
  materials. Key aspects of evaluating any resource
  include criteria such as
• authority
• objectivity
• accuracy
• currency
• coverage

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(continue)

• Authority Who is sponsoring the Web page? What
  are their credentials?
• A known, reputable organization such as the
  American Diabetes Association can usually be
  trusted to provide reliable information, though
  the accuracy of links can not be guaranteed.
• Search engines may retrieve Web pages out of
  context so it is difficult to figure out the
  source. Try to return to the homepage of the
  sponsoring organization for documentation.

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(continue)

• Objectivity Is the page free from bias?
• Pages sponsored by a business or manufacturer
  such as a drug company may have a specific slant
  to the information provided.
• Accuracy How reliable and valid is the
  information presented?
• Many Web pages are not peer reviewed or examined
  by fact checkers. Before using the information
  found on the Web important facts can be checked
  against other sources.

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(continue)

• Currency How up to date is the information
  presented?
• There is no standardization to the meaning of
  dates on a Web page. The date may refer to when
  the page was written, when it was put on the Web,
  or when it was last revised.
• Seek out a date on the page. Pages kept current
  probably contain more reliable information.
• Evaluate pages separately as you move through the
  links.
• Coverage What is the scope of the page?
• It is often difficult to determine the depth of
  coverage of a subject on a Web page since the
  format is different than print. The information
  presented in a Web version may be provided in a
  condensed form.

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Review Questions 3

• Usually it is very easy to figure out who is
  sponsoring the web page
• True
• False
• Pages sponsored by drug companies are very
  objective and unbiased
• True
• False
• Important facts found on Internet should be
  always checked against other sources
• True
• False

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