What is 'Medline Clinical Queries'?

  • 'Clinical Queries Filters' is a feature that has been incorporated into some of the Medline databases.
  • 'Clinical Queries' is targeted towards clinicians and students who are interested in retrieving citations on clinical studies.
  • This specialized interface provides fast access to reliable clinical studies via study categories and retrieval emphasis. Pre-set research methodology filters developed by RB Haynes et al, enable the searcher to quickly locate the relevant literature on therapy, diagnosis, etiology, prognosis, and clinical prediction guides, as well as qualitative studies, economics/costs, and reviews.
NOTE
  • Clinical Queries will not supply a comprehensive literature search. Instead, a quick and easy answer to the clinical query is provided
  • Clinical Queries will display citations that report research conducted with specific methodologies

    • Selecting the Medline Clinical Queries Filter

    Two Medline platforms available through The University of Queensland site support Clinical Queries
    • Ovid Medline
    • Pubmed

    The following study categories are the focus of Clinical Queries:

    Therapy The therapy filter will retrieve clinical studies that discuss the treatment of diseases
    Diagnosis The diagnosis filter will retrieve clinical studies addressing disease diagnosis
    Etiology/Aetiology The etiology filter will retrieve clinical studies addressing causation/harm in disease and diagnostics
    Prognosis The prognosis filter will retrieve clinical studies addressing disease prognosis
    Clinical Prediction Guides The clinical prediction guides filter will retrieve clinical studies addressing risk assessment testing.
    Headings below are included with Clinical Queries in Ovid Medline but can be found elsewhere in Pubmed
    Reviews Pubmed – limit to article type
    Qualitative studies Pubmed – limit to Evaluation studies in Mesh
    Costs/Economics Pubmed – limit to Mesh either as a heading/sub-heading

    ________ to top of page ________

    Medline Clinical Queries offer three emphasis categories
      Sensitivity Use the sensitivity filter to find mostly relevant articles. Less relevant articles will also be included in this emphasis. Choose this filter to find a greater total number of articles for your query when you want to browse the literature
      Specificity This option will retrieve the articles most relevant to your query, and therefore will limit the total number of articles found. Some less relevant articles may also be retrieved. Choose this option to refine your search results to the articles most relevant to your query
      Optimized (Ovid Medline) This option is the combination of terms that optimizes the trade-off between sensitivity and specificity

      These filters are based on the work of R. Brian Haynes MD, PhD et al. of the Health Information Research Unit (HIRU) at McMaster University where a detailed explanation of the strategies behind these limits can be found. Alternatively you can access the table included on Pubmed

      How do I activate 'Medline Clinical Queries'?

      To activate the clinical queries filters follow these steps:

        1. Click on Databases from the Library homepage
        2. Type Medline in the Search box then choose either Ovid Medline or Pubmed
        3. Ovid Medline will need UQ authentication
        4. Pubmed is freely available

      Ovid Medline
        1. Type in your search strategy (see Ovid Medline How To Guide for help with searching)

          Search strategy

        2. Go to More Limits
        3. Look at Clinical Queries

          4. Clinical queries

        4. Make your selection from the box - to select or remove multiple items from the list, hold down the Shift or Ctrl key while selecting.
        5. Select any other relevant limits (eg; Date, Language, Age etc.) by clicking in checkboxes or choosing from pull-down menus
        6. Choose the search to limit, by clicking in the box

          7. Search to limit to

        7. Click Limit a Search and the results of the search incorporating the Clinical Queries Filter and any other limits you have selected will be displayed

          8. Results

        8. Click on Display to bring up the citations.

      Pubmed

      For a Simple Search:

        1. Go to Clinical Queries – (left hand column)
        2. Type in your search
        3. Choose clinical category and scope (only one radio button for each can be chosen)

          4. Clinical Queries

        4. Click Go
        5. Your search results will be displayed

        6. Other limits can then be added

      For a more complicated search:

        1. Construct your search strategy from the Pubmed search screen including any limits

          2. Main screen

        2. Go to History
          3. to ascertain search number

          Search number

        3. Go to Clinical Queries – (left hand column)
        4. Enter search number

          5. Clinical queries number

        5. Choose clinical category and scope (only one radio button for each can be chosen)
        6. Click Go and the results will be displayed.

          7. Results

        7. Check History to show how the search has been constructed

          Search strategy

      Updated November 2006

      Ask at the Information Desk in any Branch Library

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