Table 3.
Queries that yielded no articles in the PubMed result list, queries that resulted in abstract selection and queries that resulted in full-text selection in relation to the number of terms used.
| Terms | Query result | ||
| No articles retrieved by query | Abstract selected | Full-text selected | |
| n/N(%) | n/N(%) | n/N(%) | |
| 1 | 101/619 (16) | 79/619 (13) | 28/619 (5) |
| 2 | 197/998 (20) | 291/998 (29) | 108/998 (11) |
| 3 | 174/716 (24) | 277/716 (39) | 131/716 (18) |
| 4 | 86/346 (25) | 145/346 (42) | 80/346 (23) |
| 5 | 42/149 (28) | 64/149 (43) | 32/149 (21) |
| 6 | 13/39 (33) | 12/39 (31) | 9/39 (23) |
Selection of 2867 queries containing no Mesh headings, limits, wildcards or special operators, "AND" operator allowed. Queries containing more than 6 terms excluded.