The MEDLINE database is firmly established as an essential tool in medical research and practice, and all doctors should develop MEDLINE search skills. This article reviews key elements of the database, looking particularly at areas of common error, and the options available when fine-tuning a search. A better understanding of MEDLINE should lead to more effective use of this invaluable resource.
To describe (1) the characteristics of attenders to an urban accident and emergency (A&E) department over a one year period according to the frequency of their attendance and (2) the features of their attendances according to the frequency which the patient attended the department during the study period.A dataset containing information on all new attendances to an urban A&E department in 1995 was formed. For each attendance the following information was recorded: day of the week, hour of attendance, referral source, triage category, and disposal. A second dataset, consisting of the individuals ("attenders") who made the A&E visits ("attendances") during 1995 was also produced. For each attender the following information was recorded: age, sex, postal code of residence, socioeconomic status, marital status, and number of attendances during 1995. A methodology reviewing the trends of frequency of attendance was utilised, as opposed to the use of an arbitrary cut off point.34,908 patients made 46,735 visits in 1995. Increasing frequency of attendance was significantly associated with increasing age (Kruskal-Wallis < 0.001), being male (chi 2 for linear trend 14.06, p < 0.001), having a local postal address (chi 2 279.79, p < 0.0001), general medical services eligibility (chi 2 781.67, p < 0.0001), and inversely associated with being married (chi 2 33.91, p < 0.0001). Increasing frequency of attendance was significantly associated with attendance between the hours of 1700 and 0900 (chi 2 295.62, p < 0.001), being triaged as a non-emergency (chi 2 1254.33, p < 0.0001), and self referral (chi 2 141.4, p < 0.0001).A small group of A&E attenders accounts for a disproportionately large percentage of the total number of departmental attendances. The characteristics of frequent A&E attenders suggest that they may represent a vulnerable group of patients. A follow up study of the utilisation of all primary care services by such patients is suggested.
MEDLINE is widely used as a source for identifying and reviewing medical journal literature. Its accuracy is generally taken for granted, as is that of the contents pages published by the journals themselves. In this study of citation accuracy we examined the articles published in Clinical Otolaryngology and Allied Sciences from 1976 to 1998. The entries in MEDLINE were compared with the entries in the Journal's contents pages, and with the actual articles. Of 1651 articles published in the journal, one was omitted from MEDLINE and 25 (1.5%) were incorrectly cited, while 88 (5.3%) were incorrectly cited in the contents pages. Twenty-one (84%) of the errors in MEDLINE involved names of authors. Apart from incomplete retrieval of information for practice and research, errors could result in an author not getting credit for publications.
OBJECTIVES: To identify randomised controlled trials (RCTs) which evaluate aspects of pre-hospital care; to perform categorisation by theme; to compare the sensitivity and precision of the search databases. DATA SOURCES: August 1997 updates of MEDLINE and EMBASE databases, using the Datastar online system. Papers published in 1987 or later were included, with no language restrictions. STUDY SELECTION: A trial was eligible for inclusion if it was judged, by two independent and blinded assessors, that participants followed up in the trial were definitely or possibly assigned prospectively to one of two or more alternative forms of healthcare with random allocation or a quasi-random method of allocation. RESULTS: The literature search retrieved 849 papers, of which 569 (67%) were in MEDLINE and 486 (57%) in EMBASE. Forty one (5%) were confirmed as reports of RCTs or quasi-RCTs, and the total number of individual trials was 38. Ten of these trials dealt with thrombolytic drugs; 14 were concerned with other drugs, 12 with equipment, and two with other interventions. Four trials were based on a sample size of more than 1000, and seven reported a statistically significant effect on mortality. All 41 papers were in EMBASE, and all but one were also in MEDLINE. CONCLUSIONS: Evidence based policy making with respect to the organisation of pre-hospital services cannot depend on RCTs. In the current relative absence of such evidence, practitioners and decision makers must use alternative information sources. A future review could examine a broader range of literature and be based on a wider search of published and unpublished material.
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This study compares the usefulness of the MEDLINE and CINAHL databases for students on post‐registration nursing courses We searched for nine topics, using title words only Identical searches of the two databases retrieved 1162 references, of which 88% were in MEDLINE, 33% in CINAHL and 20% in both sources The relevance of the references was assessed by student reviewers The positive predictive value of CINAHL (70%) was higher than that of MEDLINE (54%), but MEDLINE produced more than twice as many relevant references as CINAHL The sensitivity of MEDLINE was 85% (95% CI 82–88%), and that of CINAHL was 41% (95% CI 37–45%) To assess the ease of obtaining the references, we developed an index of accessibility, based on the holdings of a number of Irish and British libraries Overall, 47% of relevant references were available in the students' own library, and 64% could be obtained within 48 hours There was no difference between the two databases overall, but when two topics relating specifically to the organization of nursing were excluded, references found in MEDLINE were significantly more accessible We recommend that MEDLINE should be regarded as the first choice of bibliographic database for any subject other than one related strictly to the organization of nursing
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