Thanks for citing our work Tom. The resource I always search first for
reports of randomized controlled trials is the CENTRAL database which
is on the Cochrane Library, free for those of us who have a national
or institutional subscription. This database has all the tagged RCTs
from MEDLINE and EMBASE as well as trials identified by handsearching
many journals.
I also note that not all records on PubMed have indexing terms -
especially more recent records, so these won't be retrieved by
searching using the publication type headings.
Regards
Julie
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On 17 April 2012 09:33, Roper Tom (WESTERN SUSSEX HOSPITALS NHS TRUST)
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The problem of identifying RCTs in Medline, and elsewhere, has been discussed in the literature. See, for example:
> Glanville JM, Lefebvre C, Miles JN, Camosso-Stefinovic J.
> How to identify randomized controlled trials in MEDLINE: ten years on.
> J Med Libr Assoc. 2006
> Apr;94(2):130-6.
> Erratum in: J Med Libr Assoc. 2006 Jul;94(3):354.
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1435857/
>
> Tom Roper
> Primary Care Librarian
> West Sussex Knowledge & Libraries
> Mobile: 07786 981123
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> http://www.westsussexknowledge.nhs.uk/
> ________________________________________
> From: Evidence based health (EBH) [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ahmed Abou-Setta, M.D. [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 16 April 2012 19:50
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Randomized trials and MeSH terms
>
> Hi Ellen,
>
> I tested the theory a bit further. Assuming that all randomized controlled
> trials are classified using the Publication type "Randomized Controlled
> Trial" I tested to see how much overall there are between this
> classification and the other similar classifications. Here are the results:
>
> Randomized controlled trial[PTYP]
> (321677)
> Randomized controlled trial[PTYP] AND Controlled Clinical Trial[PTYP]
> (4741)
> Randomized controlled trial[PTYP] AND Randomized Controlled Trials As
> Topic[MeSH] (5408)
> Randomized controlled trial[PTYP] AND Random Allocation[MeSH]
> (17539)
>
> So there is overlap between the classes even though according to the
> definitions of each of these terms, there should be a higher degree of
> correlation.
>
> Definitions from MeSH database:
>
> Randomized Controlled Trial [Publication Type]: Work consisting of a
> clinical trial that involves at least one test treatment and one control
> treatment, concurrent enrollment and follow-up of the test- and
> control-treated groups, and in which the treatments to be administered are
> selected by a random process, such as the use of a random-numbers table.
>
> Controlled Clinical Trial [Publication Type]: Work consisting of a clinical
> trial involving one or more test treatments, at least one control treatment,
> specified outcome measures for evaluating the studied intervention, and a
> bias-free method for assigning patients to the test treatment. The treatment
> may be drugs, devices, or procedures studied for diagnostic, therapeutic, or
> prophylactic effectiveness. Control measures include placebos, active
> medicine, no-treatment, dosage forms and regimens, historical comparisons,
> etc. When randomization using mathematical techniques, such as the use of a
> random numbers table, is employed to assign patients to test or control
> treatments, the trial is characterized as a RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL.
>
> Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic[MeSH]: Clinical trials that involve at
> least one test treatment and one control treatment, concurrent enrollment
> and follow-up of the test- and control-treated groups, and in which the
> treatments to be administered are selected by a random process, such as the
> use of a random-numbers table.
>
> Random Allocation[MeSH]: A process involving chance used in therapeutic
> trials or other research endeavor for allocating experimental subjects,
> human or animal, between treatment and control groups, or among treatment
> groups. It may also apply to experiments on inanimate objects.
>
> So either: (1) I am misreading the descriptions since I would consider an
> RCT to fall under of these descriptions; (2) the descriptions need an
> overhaul to explicitly state when each is used (e.g. actual reporting of
> trial results vs. supplementary trial information like protocol, methods,
> justification, economic analysis based on RCT, meta-analysis of RCTs, etc.);
> (3) the reviewers who are classifying studies are not being consistent in
> the way they are using these terms.
>
> For now, I am sticking with the notion that results of randomized trials
> would be associated with Randomized controlled trial[PTYP].
>
> Thanks again for your insight and thoughts.
>
> Ahmed
>
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