Premium
Evaluating the MEDLINE C ore C linical J ournals filter: data‐driven evidence assessing clinical utility
Author(s) -
KleinFedyshin Michele,
Ketchum Andrea M.,
Arnold Robert M.,
Fedyshin Peter J.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of evaluation in clinical practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.737
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2753
pISSN - 1356-1294
DOI - 10.1111/jep.12190
Subject(s) - filter (signal processing) , ranking (information retrieval) , medicine , computer science , information retrieval , computer vision
Rationale, aims and objectives MEDLINE offers the C ore C linical J ournals filter to limit to clinically useful journals. To determine its effectiveness for searching and patient‐centric decision making, this study compared literature used for M orning R eport in I nternal M edicine with journals in the filter. Method An E nd N ote library with references answering 327 patient‐related questions during M orning R eport from 2007 to 2012 was exported to a file listing variables including designated C ore C linical J ournal, I mpact F actor, date used and medical subject. B radford's law of scattering was applied ranking the journals and reflecting their clinical utility. Recall (sensitivity) and precision of the C ore M orning R eport journals and non‐ C ore set was calculated. This study applied bibliometrics to compare the 628 articles used against these criteria to determine journals impacting decision making. Results Analysis shows 30% of clinically used articles are from the C ore C linical J ournals filter and 16% of the journals represented are C ore titles. When B radford‐ranked, 55% of the top 20 journals are C ore. Articles <5 years old furnish 63% of sources used. Among the 63 M orning R eport subjects, 55 have <50% precision and 41 have <50% recall including 37 subjects with 0% precision and 0% recall. Conclusions Low usage of publications within the C ore C linical J ournals filter indicates less relevance for hospital‐based care. The divergence from high‐impact medicine titles suggests clinically valuable journals differ from academically important titles. With few subjects demonstrating high recall or precision, the MEDLINE C ore C linical J ournals filter may require a review and update to better align with current clinical needs.