Table 2.

Searches strategies: description, number of hits, and performances over the first 2 pages of PubMed output.

Strategy No.	Search strategy			No. of hits in output		Performances for an output of 2 pages (maximum 40 items)
						Sensitivity (%)		PPVb (%)		NNRc
	Query	Clinical Queries	Limits	Median	IQRa	Median	IQR	Median	IQR	Median
S1	PICd	NAe	NA	173	79–322	9.8	0.0–29.4	2.5	0.0–10.0	40
S2	PIC	Therapy, broad	NA	126	66–276	14.6	0.0–30.0	5.0	0.0–10.0	20
S3	PIC	Therapy, broad	English, human	97	59–229	17.6	0.0–33.3	5.0	0.0–12.5	20
S4	PIC	Therapy, narrow	NA	33	17–67	48.5	23.5–80.0	21.3	12.5–35.0	5
S5	PIC	Therapy, narrow	English, human	31	14–67	52.8	23.5–80.0	23.8	12.5–36.4	4
S6	PICOd	NA	NA	91	36–179	17.9	4.3–60.0	6.3	2.5–15.0	16
S7	PICO	Therapy, broad	NA	75	33–165	26.1	9.1–75.0	8.8	5.0–20.0	11
S8	PICO	Therapy, broad	English, human	62	28–138	29.6	9.1–75.0	11.3	5.0–20.8	9
S9	PICO	Therapy, broad	English, human, AIMf	11	5–24	15.5	11.1–40.0	20.0	14.3–33.3	5
S10	PICO	Therapy, narrow	NA	22	13–51	54.7	27.3–78.6	32.1	14.3–50.0	3
S11	PICO	Therapy, narrow	English, human	20	12–50	54.7	27.3–78.6	32.8	15.0–50.0	3
S12	PICO	Therapy, narrow	English, human, AIM	5	3–13	15.5	10.5–33.3	50.0	23.1–56.2	2
S13	Related #1g	NA	NA	350	204–599	39.7	20.0–50.0	10.0	5.0–15.0	10
S14	Related #2g	NA	NA	340	138–484	37.9	18.4–62.5	10.0	5.0–17.5	10
S15	Related #3g	NA	NA	305	167–558	37.5	18.5–50.0	7.5	5.0–17.5	13

^a Interquartile range.

^b Positive predictive value (ie, precision).

^c Number of items needed to read to find a relevant article in the screened output; equal to 1/PPV of the search.

^d Population, interventions, comparison, (outcomes).

^e Not applied.

^f Abridged Index Medicus (set of 119 core clinical journals [28]).

^g From the output of search S11, related articles were searched for the 3 articles whose title was closest to the PICO query.