USING ELEMENTS OF PROGNOSIS HEDGES

Is your clinical question a PROGNOSIS question?

Incorporate elements of a prognosis hedge into your search to find evidence that predicts the probable outcome of a disease based on a individual's condition and the usual course of the disease as seen in similar situations.

Recommended Prognosis Subject Headings

Cohort Studies
Disease Progression
Longitudinal Studies
Prospective Studies
Follow-up Studies
Incidence
Prevalence
Death
Survival Analysis
Prognosis
Treatment Outcome
Medical Futility
Treatment Failure
Morbidity
Mortality
Survival Rate
Infant Mortality
Maternal Mortality
Cause of Death
Likelihood Functions

Recommended Prognosis Subheadings (attach to subject)

mortality (mo)
epidemiology (ep)

Recommended Prognosis Keyword Searches Try entering these combinations on the "enter keyword" line:

  1. ((natural$ or disease) adj (progress$ or course$ or histor$)).ti,ab,sh.
  2. (cohort$ or compar$ or longitudinal$ or prospective$ or multivariate or reproducib$).ti,ab,sh.

The .ti,ab,sh. that you see above indicate that you are looking for these words in the titles (ti) , abstracts (ab), or subject headings (sh) of the articles. The $ indicates a wild card character or truncation.


PROGNOSIS HEDGE EXAMPLE:

This strategy will filter articles that contain evidence-based information on the prognosis of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.

# Search History Results Comments
1 exp *Diabetes Mellitus, Non-Insulin-Dependent/mo 49 Here we've specified the "mortality" (/mo) subheading. The are 49 articles on mortality associated with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.
2 exp *diabetes mellitus, non-insulin-dependent/ 5351 Now we will search for non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus without specifying a subheading. Notice that our retrieval is a much larger group of 5351 articles.
3 ((natural$ or disease$) adj (progress$ or course$ or histor$)).ti,ab,sh. 8769 Now we'll search for a variety of keywords that express the natural progression, course, or history of a disease.
4 2 and 3 60 When we combine sets #2 (disease term) with set #3, we find 60 articles.
5 Survival Analysis
15631 Now we're searching for a very specific subject heading, "survival analysis".
6 5 and 2 32 When we combine sets #2 (disease term) with set #5 (survival analysis), we find 32 articles.

Once again, pick and choose from among the most relevant recommended subject headings, subheadings, and keywords, then combine them with your disease term in order to find the most relevant prognosis evidence.

Let's move on to the ETIOLOGY hedge.