Facilitating access to evidence: Primary Health Care Search Filter

Abstract

Background: The evidence base developed by, and relevant to, primary health care (PHC) is rapidly increasing. With the wealth of literature available, searchers trying to find PHCspecific citations can feel overwhelmed. Objectives: Flinders Filters and the Primary Health Care Research & Information Service collaborated to develop a search filter enabling efficient and effective retrieval of relevant PHC literature. Methods: Stage 1 involved developing a PHC Search Filter in the OvidSP Medline platform using a rigorous experimental methodology. The search filter was then translated for webbased 'one click searching' in PubMed during Stage 2. Stage 3 involved planning and implementing a mixed-methods evaluation. Results: The search filter sensitivity was 77.0% with a post hoc relevance assessment of 78.3%. Four months after its launch a mixed-methods study evaluated the PHC Search Filter. With 90 respondents, analysis of data from the online survey demonstrated overarching benefits and a positive response to the tool, and directions for further refinement of the PHC Search Filter. Discussion: Designing the PHC Search Filter followed an established method that ensures the tool offers a validated search strategy. Evaluation results suggest that the PHC Search Filter is a useful tool that is easy to navigate. Challenges for the Filter relate to access to full text articles, while challenges for the evaluation relate to the small sample size. Conclusions: The PHC Search Filter reduces the burden associated with literature searching, increases the value of the results that are received, and provides a useful resource to improve the likelihood of incorporating relevant evidence into policy and practice. KeywordsPrimary health care, information storage and retrieval, information management, evidencebased practice Key messages Promoting access to quality, relevant literature may help to encourage uptake of evidence to inform research, practice and policy development  Search filters based on validated development methods increase the likelihood of quality retrievals of citations  The PHC Search Filter retrieves citations from the unindexed and indexed sets of the PubMed database providing searchers with the emerging and established literature  The PHC Search Filter is able to facilitate easier access to relevant primary health care literature for overwhelmed, time poor researchers, policy makers and practitioners  Topic searches that are combined with a search filter should be regularly updated to ensure relevance to searchers' needs/interests are incorporated

Finding the Integrated Care Evidence Base in PubMed and Beyond: A Bibliometric Study of the Challenges

“…Search filters are already well-established tools for finding research evidence by study methodology [252627]. They are also increasingly useful for ensuring reliable, rapid access to literature on conceptually complex subject areas [28293031]. To our knowledge, no subject search filter has been developed for integrated care prior to our study.…”

Topic search filters: a systematic scoping review

“… Clinical conditions (Damarell, Tieman, Olver, & Currow, ; Damarell, Tieman, Sladek, et al., ; Hayman & Tieman, ; Hildebrand et al., , ; Iansavichus et al., ; Jenuwine & Floyd, ; Li & Lu, ; Shaheem & Tieman, ; Wilczynski & Haynes, ) Clinical disciplines (Brown et al., ; Durão, Kredo, & Volmink, ; Garg et al., ; Gill, Roberts, Wang, & Heneghan, ; Iansavichus et al., ; Jenuwine & Floyd, ; Li & Lu, ; Olaussen, Semple, Oteir, Todd, & Williams, ; Pols, Bramer, Bindels, van de Laar, & Bohnen, ; Sladek, Tieman, Fazekas, Abernethy, & Currow, ; Van de Glind, van Munster, Spijker, Scholten, & Hooft, ) Clinical interventions (Haslinghuis‐Bajan et al., ; Iansavichus et al., ; Kirk, Damarell, Tieman, & Harvey, ; Lee, Iansavichus et al., ) Demography (Hooijmans, Tillema, Leenaars, & Ritskes‐Hoitinga, ; Kastner, Wilczynski, Walker‐Dilks, McKibbon, & Haynes, ; Leclercq, Leeflang, van Dalen, & Kremer, ; Moerman, Deurenberg, & Haafkens, ; Song, Simonsen, Wilson, & Jenkins, ; Stewart et al., ; Tieman, Lawrence, Damarell, Sladek, & Nikolof, ) Geography (Ayiku et al., ; Pienaar, Grobler, Busgeeth, Eisinga, & Siegfried, ; Valderas, Mendivil, Parada, Losada‐Yanez, & Alonso, ) Health care delivery issues (Hempel et al., ; Lokker et al., ; McKibbon et al., ; Mesgarpour, Muller, & Herkner, 2012a, 2012b; Simon, Hausner, Klaus, & Dunton, ; Tanon et al., ; Varela‐Lema, Punal‐Rioboo, Accion, Ruano‐Ravina, & Garcia, ; Wilczynski & Haynes, ) Non‐clinical patient and carer issues (Johnson, Tongbram, Ndirangu, Ogden, & Bay, ; Petrova, Sutcliffe, Fulford, & Dale, ; Rogers, Bethel, & Boddy, ; Selva et al., ; Tieman, Hayman, &a...…”

“…These definitions used terms such as ‘validated’ (Ayiku et al., ; Damarell, Tieman, Olver, et al., ; Damarell, Tieman, Sladek, et al., ; Hayman & Tieman, ; Rogers et al., ), ‘experimentally created’, ‘pre‐tested’, ‘objectively derived’, ‘strategically developed’, ‘evidence‐based’ or ‘research based’ (Brown et al., ; Damarell, Tieman, Sladek, et al., ; Gill et al., ; Hildebrand et al., , ; Olaussen et al., ; Petrova et al., ; Tieman et al., ). A further differentiation was the search filter's known level of performance (Brown et al., ; Damarell, Tieman, Sladek, et al., ; Hayman & Tieman, ). Only one report incorporated the use of a gold standard set for testing performance into its definition of a search filter (Ayiku et al., ).…”

Peer Review at the Health Information and Libraries Journal

“…Acknowledging that searchers can often feel overwhelmed when seeking to locate citations, Brown et al . developed a public health care search strategy for PubMed, translated it into a ‘one‐click searching’ facility and evaluated its utility.…”