Apologies if anyone gets 2 copies of this - we're having a few e-mail problems.
Medline indexing problems aside, I imagine the reason that your search is picking up lots of retrospective studies is that Retrospective Studies comes below Case Control Studies in the MeSH tree and KF is exploding the term Case Control Studies. KF isn't an interface that I use very much (I prefer OVID, WinSpirs or even PubMed for serious searching), but I can tell you roughly how to exclude retrospective studies.
Search for Case Control Studies as usual in the thesaurus and put the term in your search box. Then search for the term again in the thesaurus but this time double click it and then click on the Context button. Select Retrospective Studies and click on the Don't Use button. Click on Done. Both terms should be in the seach box, but Retrospective Studies should have a minus symbol beside it. Then click on the Search button.
I imagine that once everyone comes back from their holidays you'll be swamped with better solutions, but that should do the trick for now.
I'd recommend that you also try a free text search for Case Control Stud* (*=truncation).
It's also worth speaking to your local medical librarian, who probably does this sort of search a lot, and/or checking out McKibbon, A., A. Eady, et al. (1999). PDQ : evidence-based principles and practice. Hamilton, Ont. ; London, B.C. Decker. An excellent guide to searching Medline and Embase and other databases for clinical studies and contains a lot of useful search strategies.
Regards,
Donald M Mackay
Enquiry Services Manager
Cairns Library
University of Oxford
01865 221939
[log in to unmask]
>>> "Simon, Steve, PhD" <[log in to unmask]> 12/28/00 04:30pm >>>
I'm trying to conduct a Medline search for case-control studies in the
Journal of Andrology using software called Knowledge Finder that our
hospital provides. When I select case-control from the MeSH thesaurus, it
gives me a bunch of studies that are retrospective, and highlights the word
"retrospective". Some of these studies are clearly not case-control studies.
Under publication types, I can't find an appropriate selection. I could
limit my search to randomized controlled trials or clinical trials, but not
case-control (or for that matter observational or cohort designs).
Why can't I limit my search to just case-control designs? Is this a
limitation of the Knowledge Finder software or of the Medline database
itself? Or am I just missing something obvious? If it is a limitation of
Knowledge Finder, what software should I try to lobby for?
Steve Simon, [log in to unmask], Standard Disclaimer.
STATS: STeve's Attempt to Teach Statistics. http://www.cmh.edu/stats
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