@Article{info:doi/10.2196/jmir.2572,
author="McKibbon, Kathleen Ann
and Lokker, Cynthia
and Keepanasseril, Arun
and Wilczynski, Nancy L
and Haynes, R Brian",
title="Net Improvement of Correct Answers to Therapy Questions After PubMed Searches: Pre/Post Comparison",
journal="J Med Internet Res",
year="2013",
month="Nov",
day="08",
volume="15",
number="11",
pages="e243",
keywords="information services; information storage and retrieval; Internet; Medline; physicians; primary health care",
abstract="Background: Clinicians search PubMed for answers to clinical questions although it is time consuming and not always successful. Objective: To determine if PubMed used with its Clinical Queries feature to filter results based on study quality would improve search success (more correct answers to clinical questions related to therapy). Methods: We invited 528 primary care physicians to participate, 143 (27.1{\%}) consented, and 111 (21.0{\%} of the total and 77.6{\%} of those who consented) completed the study. Participants answered 14 yes/no therapy questions and were given 4 of these (2 originally answered correctly and 2 originally answered incorrectly) to search using either the PubMed main screen or PubMed Clinical Queries narrow therapy filter via a purpose-built system with identical search screens. Participants also picked 3 of the first 20 retrieved citations that best addressed each question. They were then asked to re-answer the original 14 questions. Results: We found no statistically significant differences in the rates of correct or incorrect answers using the PubMed main screen or PubMed Clinical Queries. The rate of correct answers increased from 50.0{\%} to 61.4{\%} (95{\%} CI 55.0{\%}-67.8{\%}) for the PubMed main screen searches and from 50.0{\%} to 59.1{\%} (95{\%} CI 52.6{\%}-65.6{\%}) for Clinical Queries searches. These net absolute increases of 11.4{\%} and 9.1{\%}, respectively, included previously correct answers changing to incorrect at a rate of 9.5{\%} (95{\%} CI 5.6{\%}-13.4{\%}) for PubMed main screen searches and 9.1{\%} (95{\%} CI 5.3{\%}-12.9{\%}) for Clinical Queries searches, combined with increases in the rate of being correct of 20.5{\%} (95{\%} CI 15.2{\%}-25.8{\%}) for PubMed main screen searches and 17.7{\%} (95{\%} CI 12.7{\%}-22.7{\%}) for Clinical Queries searches. Conclusions: PubMed can assist clinicians answering clinical questions with an approximately 10{\%} absolute rate of improvement in correct answers. This small increase includes more correct answers partially offset by a decrease in previously correct answers. ",
issn="14388871",
doi="10.2196/jmir.2572",
url="http://www.jmir.org/2013/11/e243/",
url="https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.2572",
url="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24217329"
}