Bulletin of the Medical Library Association最新文献

Consumer health information studies in library and information science (LIS) are typically not grounded within a theoretical framework. This article explains the importance of theory to LIS research in general, and the specific value of using theories from other disciplines to study consumers' health information-seeking behavior. The argument is supported with two examples: Miller's psychological theory of blunting and monitoring behavior and Granovetter's sociological theory of the strength of weak ties. These theories can be applied by practitioner-researchers to investigate a variety of research problems.

[This corrects the article on p. 316 in vol. 87.].

Objective: To evaluate the adequacy of the MEDLINE instruction routinely given to all entering medical students at the University of Miami School of Medicine and the ability of students to search effectively for and retrieve evidence-based information for clinical decision making by the end of their third-year.

Methodology: The authors developed and implemented a strategy for evaluating the search strategies and articles selected by third-year students, who participated in the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in June 1996, 1997, and 1998, and reviewed the literature on evidence-based medicine and evaluation of medical student searches.

Results: A mean of 5% of the students' search strategies and a mean of 26% of articles selected were ranked "excellent" or "good"; a mean of 26% of search strategies were ranked "fair" and a mean of 69% were ranked "poor"; and a mean of 22% of articles selected were ranked "fair" and a mean of 52% were ranked "poor" based on the strategy developed to evaluate student searches.

Conclusions: Evaluating medical student searches for evidence-based information is an effective way of evaluating students' searching proficiency, and, in turn, the adequacy of the instruction they receive. Based on the results of the OSCE test, the school of medicine expanded the library's educational role and the library implemented major changes in the training program. Information on evidence-based medicine is now incorporated into the MEDLINE instruction. Library faculty evaluate the required searches performed by students for evidence-based information during their first and second years; 30% of students are identified for follow-up, individualized instruction based on the evaluation; and a new case-based curriculum has been proposed with a fourteen-week problem-based learning (PBL) block. These developments are timely in light of the evidence-based competencies recently published by the Association of American Medical Colleges.

At times, there are reasons for authors to make a formal statement of retraction of work they publish in biomedical journals. This study examines 235 retracted articles and looks at the reasons for these retractions and citations to the articles subsequent to retraction. The primary reasons for retraction are error of various kinds (such as problems with method or sample, including contamination of samples) and misconduct. The 235 articles are cited a total of 2,034 times after retraction. This set of citations can be divided into two groups: citations that appear in journals included in the Abridged Index Medicus and those that appear in other journals included in MEDLINE. While most of the citations in these two groups of journals can be categorized as "implicitly positive," 275 make explicitly positive mention of retracted articles. The implications for continued citation for biomedical research and clinical practice are discussed.

Objective: A study was conducted to determine if bibliographic retrieval performed by French-speaking end users is impaired by English language interfaces. The American database MEDLINE on CD-ROM was used as a model.

Methods: A survey of self-administered questionnaires was performed at two libraries of Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2 University, during a two-month period in 1997. Three study groups were constituted: MEDLINE / Ovid end users, MEDLINE / Ovid librarian-mediated users, and Pascal, a French bibliographic database, end users.

Results: Among 191 respondents, only 22% thought English was an obstacle to their bibliographic retrieval. However, the research software was generally underused and the quality of the retrieval weak. The differences were statistically significant between users trained by librarians and the self-trained group, the former performing better.

Conclusion: Special efforts need to be made to develop curriculum training programs for computerized bibliographic retrieval in medical schools, regardless of the native language of the student.

Identifying and accessing reliable, relevant consumer health information rapidly on the Internet may challenge the health sciences librarian and layperson alike. In this study, seven search engines are compared using representative consumer health topics for their content relevancy, system features, and attributes. The paper discusses evaluation criteria; systematically compares relevant results; analyzes performance in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of the search engines; and illustrates effective search engine selection, search formulation, and strategies.

The rapid growth of medical knowledge is creating a demand for new ways of providing information in support of evidence-based medical practice. Problem Knowledge Couplers are a clinical decision support software tool that offer a new approach to this growing problem. Couplers are developed through a collaboration among clinicians, informaticians, and librarians. They recognize that functionality must be predicated upon combining unique patient information, gleaned through relevant structured question sets, with the appropriate knowledge found in the world's peer-reviewed medical literature. Two pilot studies indicate that couplers can meet the gold standards of decision making within both a primary care and a specialty practice. Issues remain about how to best integrate Problem Knowledge Couplers into clinical practice and whether large-scale outcomes research will support the findings of pilot studies. However, Problem Knowledge Couplers represent a promising approach that might portend a new model for health care delivery in the next millennium.

Have librarians promoted end user searching to the detriment of the profession and promoted clinical inefficiency from causally trained health practitioners? Issues related to the complexity of bibliographic retrieval in the networked environment are explored within the context of evidence-based medicine and the division of labor.