La recuperación de la información en ciencias de la salud: Medline vs. Medline

Medline has become the most used source of biomedical information. Sanitary personnel use Medline through PubMed due to its easiness and free access, although other database providers continue offering Medline for a fee (pay per use, subscription, etc.). Our objective has been to compare the search results using PubMed (free) versus ERLWebSPIRS-SilverPlatter® (paid subscription). We have searched for the publications on “Public Health” existing in this database between 1994 and 2003. Material and method: Descriptive and cross sectional study of the results of the bibliographical searches made in the database Medline. Results: Relative percentage differences obtained according to diverse search type: Maximum 99,86; Minimum -127,06; Mean 10,86; Median -1,84. Discussion and conclusion: Once seen the differences, an error in the election of the terminology or in the process of information search will alter the results. Therefore it is mandatory to write down the search strategies so that obtained results be consistent and can be reproduced