Journal
EVALUATION & THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS
Volume 29, Issue 4, Pages 440-454Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/0163278706293400
Keywords
bibliographic databases; PsycINFO; qualitative studies; information retrieval; searching for information
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Researchers and practitioners have problems retrieving qualitative studies. Search strategies that can easily and effectively retrieve these studies from large databases such as PsycINFO are therefore important. To determine if search strategies can identify qualitative studies, 64 journals published in 2000 were hand searched using explicit methodological criteria to identify qualitative studies. The authors tested multiple search strategies using 4,985 potential search terms in PsycINFO (Ovid Technologies) and compared the results with the hand search data to calculate retrieval effectiveness. A total of 125 qualitative studies were identified. Single-term and multiple-term strategies had sensitivities (maximizing retrieval of qualitative studies) up to 94.4% and specificities (minimizing retrieval of nonqualitative studies and reports) up to 98.6% with ranges of precision and accuracy. Search strategies included terms that were variations of interview, qualitative, themes, and experience. Formal indexing terms performed poorly. Empirically derived search strategies combining textwords can effectively, but not perfectly, retrieve qualitative studies from PsycINFO.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available