Medline Search Strategies: Diagnosis
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Overview of Search Strategies

Quick Search Strategy
Quality Search Strategy

Quick Search Strategy: Type in your search terms; combine the separate lines with AND or OR, and then apply one of the following (note: these terms have only been used in Medline as Keywords since 1986):

Best one-term strategy:

• Use sensitivity as a Title Word search term.

Maximum sensitivity strategy:

• Use sensitivity AND specificity as a Keyword  search string, or
• sensitivity as a Title Word search term, or
• specificity as a Title Word search term.

Maximum specificity strategy:

• Use sensitivity AND specificity as a Keyword  search string, or
• use predictive AND value$ as a Title Word search string.

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Quality Search Strategy:   The following "hedge", or standardized search strategy, creates a large set of high validity articles on diagnosis. It may take several minutes to run on Medline.   Note: $ is the truncation symbol on OVID databases.

1. exp "sensitivity and specificity"/
2. exp diagnostic errors
3. (sensitivity or false positive or false negative or predict$ or observer variation).ti,ab,sh.
4. 1 or 2 or 3
5. (blind$ or mask$ or compar$).ti,ab,sh.
6. 4 and 5

Save this strategy as an expert search.

After entering the hedge, you can search by target disease or disorder.  For maximum sensitivity, use "all subheadings".  For more specificity, use one or more of the following subheadings:  

• Diagnosis (DI)
• Analysis (AN)
• Blood (BL)
• Cerebrospinal Fluid (CF)
• Pathology (PA)
• Radiography (RA)
• Radionuclide Imaging (RI)
• Ultrasonics (US)
• Urine (UR)

Alternatively you can search by diagnostic test, agent, or technique.  For maximum sensitivity, use "all subheadings".  For more specificity, use one or more of the following subheadings:  

• Diagnostic use (DU)
• Analysis (AN)
• Blood (BL)
• Cerebrospinal Fluid (CF)
• Urine (UR)

After entering the search strategy shown above, combine the result with the set generated by the hedge using the Boolean operator "AND".

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