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Methods Inf Med 2016; 55(04): 333-339
DOI: 10.3414/ME15-01-0143
Original Articles
Schattauer GmbH

What Searches Do Users Run on PEDro?[*]

An Analysis of 893,971 Search Commands Over a 6-Month Period
Matthew L. Stevens
1   The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
,
Anne Moseley
1   The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
,
Mark R. Elkins
2   Central Clinical School, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
,
Christine C.-W. Lin
1   The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
,
Chris G. Maher
1   The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Publication History

received: 28 October 2015

accepted in revised form: 18 February 2016

Publication Date:
08 January 2018 (online)

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Summary

Background: Clinicians must be able to search effectively for relevant research if they are to provide evidence-based healthcare. It is therefore relevant to consider how users search databases of evidence in healthcare, including what information users look for and what search strategies they employ. To date such analyses have been restricted to the PubMed database. Although the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) is searched millions of times each year, no studies have investigated how users search PEDro.

Objectives: To assess the content and quality of searches conducted on PEDro. Methods: Searches conducted on the PEDro website over 6 months were downloaded and the ‘get’ commands and page-views extracted. The following data were tabulated: the 25 most common searches; the number of search terms used; the frequency of use of simple and advanced searches, including the use of each advanced search field; and the frequency of use of various search strategies.

Results: Between August 2014 and January 2015, 893,971 search commands were entered on PEDro. Fewer than 18 % of these searches used the advanced search features of PEDro. ‘Musculoskeletal’ was the most common subdiscipline searched, while ‘low back pain’ was the most common individual search. Around 20 % of all searches contained errors.

Conclusions: PEDro is a commonly used evidence resource, but searching appears to be sub-optimal in many cases. The effectiveness of searches conducted by users needs to improve, which could be facilitated by methods such as targeted training and amending the search interface.

Keywords

Information systems - bibliographic databases - search engines - PEDro - physiotherapy

* Supplementary material published on our web-site http://dx.doi.org/10.3414/ME15-01-0143