RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Search strings for the study of putative occupational determinants of disease
JF Occupational and Environmental Medicine
JO Occup Environ Med
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 436
OP 443
DO 10.1136/oem.2008.044727
VO 67
IS 7
A1 Stefano Mattioli
A1 Francesca Zanardi
A1 Alberto Baldasseroni
A1 Frederieke Schaafsma
A1 Robin MT Cooke
A1 Gianpiero Mancini
A1 Mauro Fierro
A1 Chiara Santangelo
A1 Andrea Farioli
A1 Serenella Fucksia
A1 Stefania Curti
A1 Francesco S Violante
A1 Jos Verbeek
YR 2010
UL http://oem.bmj.com/content/67/7/436.abstract
AB Objective To identify efficient PubMed search strategies to retrieve articles regarding putative occupational determinants of conditions not generally considered to be work related.Methods Based on MeSH definitions and expert knowledge, we selected as candidate search terms the four MeSH terms describing ‘occupational disease’, ‘occupational exposure’, ‘occupational health’ and ‘occupational medicine’ (DEHM) alongside 22 other promising terms. We first explored overlaps between the candidate terms in PubMed. Using random samples of abstracts retrieved by each term, we estimated the proportions of articles containing potentially pertinent information regarding occupational aetiology in order to formulate two search strategies (one more ‘specific’, one more ‘sensitive’). We applied these strategies to retrieve information on the possible occupational aetiology of meningioma, pancreatitis and atrial fibrillation.Results Only 20.3% of abstracts were retrieved by more than one DEHM term. The more ‘specific’ search string was based on the combination of terms that yielded the highest proportion (40%) of potentially pertinent abstracts. The more ‘sensitive’ string was based on the use of broader search fields and additional coverage provided by other search terms under study. Using the specific string, the numbers of abstracts needed to read to find one potentially pertinent article were 1.2 for meningioma, 1.9 for pancreatitis and 1.8 for atrial fibrillation. Using the sensitive strategy, the numbers needed to read were 4.4 for meningioma, 8.9 for pancreatitis and 10.5 for atrial fibrillation.Conclusions The proposed strings could help health care professionals explore putative occupational aetiology for diseases that are not generally thought to be work related.