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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2018 Mar 15;16(1):27.
doi: 10.1186/s12961-018-0299-8.

A comparative evaluation of PDQ-Evidence

Marit Johansen  1 , Gabriel Rada  2   3   4 , Sarah Rosenbaum  5 , Elizabeth Paulsen  6 , Nkengafac Villyen Motaze  7   8   9 , Newton Opiyo  10 , Charles S Wiysonge  7   11   12 , Yunpeng Ding  13 , Fidele K Mukinda  14 , Andrew D Oxman  5
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

A comparative evaluation of PDQ-Evidence

Marit Johansen et al. Health Res Policy Syst. .

Abstract

Background: A strategy for minimising the time and obstacles to accessing systematic reviews of health system evidence is to collect them in a freely available database and make them easy to find through a simple 'Google-style' search interface. PDQ-Evidence was developed in this way. The objective of this study was to compare PDQ-Evidence to six other databases, namely Cochrane Library, EVIPNet VHL, Google Scholar, Health Systems Evidence, PubMed and Trip.

Methods: We recruited healthcare policy-makers, managers and health researchers in low-, middle- and high-income countries. Participants selected one of six pre-determined questions. They searched for a systematic review that addressed the chosen question and one question of their own in PDQ-Evidence and in two of the other six databases which they would normally have searched. We randomly allocated participants to search PDQ-Evidence first or to search the two other databases first. The primary outcomes were whether a systematic review was found and the time taken to find it. Secondary outcomes were perceived ease of use and perceived time spent searching. We asked open-ended questions about PDQ-Evidence, including likes, dislikes, challenges and suggestions for improvements.

Results: A total of 89 people from 21 countries completed the study; 83 were included in the primary analyses and 6 were excluded because of data errors that could not be corrected. Most participants chose PubMed and Cochrane Library as the other two databases. Participants were more likely to find a systematic review using PDQ-Evidence than using Cochrane Library or PubMed for the pre-defined questions. For their own questions, this difference was not found. Overall, it took slightly less time to find a systematic review using PDQ-Evidence. Participants perceived that it took less time, and most participants perceived PDQ-Evidence to be slightly easier to use than the two other databases. However, there were conflicting views about the design of PDQ-Evidence.

Conclusions: PDQ-Evidence is at least as efficient as other databases for finding health system evidence. However, using PDQ-Evidence is not intuitive for some people.

Trial registration: The trial was prospectively registered in the ISRCTN registry 17 April 2015. Registration number: ISRCTN12742235 .

Keywords: Bibliographic databases; Clearing house; Comparative study; Database searching; Evidence-informed health policy; Health policy; Health systems; Information retrieval; Search engine; Search strategies; Systematic reviews.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All participants in the study consented to participate.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

GB has received payment as the CEO of Epistemonikos for the development and maintenance of PDQ-Evidence. None of the other authors have a financial interest in PDQ-Evidence. GB, SR and AO helped to plan and develop PDQ-Evidence. MJ gave general feedback and commented on the search functionality of PDQ-Evidence. All of the authors otherwise declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Links between systematic reviews, overviews and primary studies in PDQ-Evidence
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Presentation of search results in PDQ-Evidence
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Presentation of documents in PDQ-Evidence
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
PDQ-Evidence matrix
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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