Abstract

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.

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Comments

1. More specific search strategy: (occupational diseases [MH] OR occupational exposure [MH] OR occupational medicine [MH] OR occupational risk [TW] OR occupational hazard [TW] OR (industry [MeSH Terms] mortality [SH]) OR occupational group* [TW] OR work-related OR occupational air pollutants [MH] OR working environment [TW]) AND name(s)-of-the-disease. 2. More sensitive search strategy: (occupational diseases [MH] OR occupational exposure [MH] OR occupational exposure* [TW] OR “occupational health” OR “occupational medicine” OR work-related OR working environment [TW] OR at work [TW] OR work environment [TW] OR occupations [MH] OR work [MH] OR workplace* [TW] OR workload OR occupation* OR worke* OR work place* [TW] OR work site* [TW] OR job* [TW] OR occupational groups [MH] OR employment OR worksite* OR industry) AND name(s)-of-the-disease. Usage notes 1. It is possible to ‘copy and paste’ each of the two strings into PubMed from a .doc file. Alternatively, the strings can be evoked in PubMed by entering the following shortened URLs in the browser address box: 2. http://tinyurl.com/mattioli-et-al-specific for the ‘more specific’ string and http://tinyurl.com/mattioli-et-al-sensitive for the ‘more sensitive’ string. 3. The name-of-the-disease should be entered without any search tag. For diseases that have more than one name, the various ‘names-of-the-disease’ should be entered in brackets, connected by the OR operator: for example . AND (epicondylitis OR tennis elbow).

9/10/2010