Table 3:

Efficiency and comprehensiveness of physician-generated searches with and without search filters, limited to the first 40 results retrieved

Clinical queries therapy filter		Nephrology filter		Search performance		Percentage-point change from nonfiltered search (99% CI)	p value^*

Broad	Narrow	Broad	Narrow	Efficiency^†; Comprehensiveness^‡	Mean, %
No filter (physician-provided searches)				Efficiency	5.5

				Comprehensiveness	12.7

x				Efficiency	5.6	0.1 (−1.8 to 2.1)	0.86

				Comprehensiveness	13.3	0.6 (−1.6 to 2.8)	0.38

	x			Efficiency	23.1	17.6 (10.6 to 24.6)	< 0.003

				Comprehensiveness	26.1	13.4 (5.5 to 21.3)	< 0.003

		x		Efficiency	4.5	−1.0 (−2.2 to 0.2)	0.006

				Comprehensiveness	9.9	−2.8 (−6.8 to 1.3)	<0.003

			x	Efficiency	5.6	0.1 (−1.8 to 2.0)	0.93

				Comprehensiveness	11.4	−1.3 (−5.0 to 2.3)	< 0.003

x		x		Efficiency	4.5	−1.0 (−3.0 to 1.0)	0.09

				Comprehensiveness	11.3	−1.4 (−5.3 to 2.5)	0.002

x			x	Efficiency	5.7	0.2 (−2.3 to 2.7)	0.84

				Comprehensiveness	12.4	−0.3 (−4.1 to 3.6)	0.01

	x	x		Efficiency	19.6	14.1 (7.9 to 20.4)	< 0.003

				Comprehensiveness	25.6	12.9 (4.9 to 21.0)	0.98

	x		x	Efficiency	21.7	16.2 (9.4 to 23.0)	< 0.003

				Comprehensiveness	26.8	14.1 (5.6 to 22.6)	0.55

Note: CI = confidence interval.
↵* Bonferroni-adjusted α = 0.003.
↵† Efficiency is the proportion of articles retrieved by the search query that are relevant to the search question (search precision, positive predictive value).
↵‡ Comprehensiveness is the proportion of all relevant articles that are retrieved by the search query (search recall, sensitivity).