Combination of terms with the best sensitivity (keeping specificity ≥50%) and best optimisation of sensitivity and specificity (based on the lowest possible absolute difference between sensitivity and specificity) for detecting original and review articles about quality improvement (QI) and for detecting original and review articles about QI that pass for methods in Medline
| Search strategy OVID search* | Sensitivity (%) development validation diff (95% CI) | Specificity (%) development validation diff (95% CI) | Precision (%) development validation diff (95% CI) | Accuracy (%) development validation diff (95% CI) |
| Best sensitivity | ||||
| All QI | ||||
| exp health services administration OR random:.mp. OR review.pt. OR compare:.tw | 97.6 98.4 0.8 (−2.5 to 3.6) | 53.0 53.3 0.3 (−0.6 to 1.1) | 2.0 1.9 −0.1 (−0.4 to 0.3) | 53.5 53.7 0.2 (−0.7 to 1.1) |
| QI pass for methods | ||||
| effectiveness.tw. OR journal.mp. OR MEDLINE.tw. OR random:.tw | 100.0 96.3 −3.7 (−9.1 to 1.4) | 89.3 89.3 0 | 5.2 4.8 −0.4 (−1.6 to 0.7) | 89.3 0 |
| Best optimisation of sensitivity and specificity All QI | ||||
| random:.ti,ab. OR educat:.tw. OR exp patient care management | 83.3 84.7 1.4 (−5.7 to 8.0) | 83.9 84.1 0.2 (−0.5 to 0.9) | 4.9 4.8 −0.1 (−1.0 to 0.9) | 83.9 84.1 0.2 (−0.5 to 0.9) |
| QI pass for methods | ||||
| control: trial:.mp. OR journal.mp. OR MEDLINE.tw. OR random: trial:.tw | 94.8 89.9 −4.9 (−12.5 to 1.3) | 95.7 95.8 0.1 (−0.3 to 0.5) | 11.4 10.6 −0.8 (−3.4 to 1.8) | 95.7 95.7 0 |
↵* Search strategies are reported using Ovid's search engine syntax for MEDLINE.
diff, difference, comparing the development and validation data sets using the iterative method of Miettinen and Nurminen for two independent binomial proportions. None of the differences were statistically significant; exp, explode, a search term that automatically includes closely related indexing terms; :, truncation; mp, multiple posting (term appears in title, abstract, or MeSH heading); pt, publication type; tw, textword (word or phrase appears in a text word field, ie, appropriate for a subject search—includes the title and abstract fields); ti,ab, term appears in the title or abstract.