Competency 6, Search 1: Building Block Search with LexisNexis

I wanted to try a search with LexisNexis because I have not used it much, but the educational nature of my usual naïve question does not fit in with the business/medical nature of this database. Therefore, I decided to try a different search question that relates to the medical field.

Naïve Question: What evidence is there about vaccines causing autism in children?

To conduct this search, I first pinpointed the facets vaccines, autism, and children. However, I decided to eliminate children since vaccinations are usually given to children. Therefore, I created my search grid by choosing vaccines and autism as my initial facets. I found additional subject headings by using the index term search option under power search.

Facets	vaccines	autism
My initial search terms	shots, immunizations	autism
Index terms	vaccines, MMR vaccine, vaccinations & immunizations	autism

Other interesting index terms: research reports, case studies, drug safety (will probably add in an additional facet to include these terms since they do not fit under vaccines or autism)

All searches are conducted as a power search using the terms and connectors search option. The default setting for sources is major world publications unless noted otherwise.

SS1: (vaccin! AND autism) Results: over 3,000

Notes: I decided to use vaccin! because that would represent all three of my index terms under vaccines. Since there were over 3,000 results, I received a screen asking me to edit my search. When I began looking at the index terms I had an idea that I would need to add another facet due to some of the other interesting and relevant index terms I found under vaccines and autism. I did not add them to vaccine or autism because using them in a Boolean search with those facets using the connector OR would not have represented the relationship between those terms I am seeking. In other words, I do not want articles about vaccines or drug safety in regards to autism. That would yield completely different results. Instead, I will add an additional facet for evidence.

Facets		vaccines		autism	evidence
My initial search terms		shots, immunizations		autism
Index terms		vaccines, MMR vaccine, vaccinations & immunizations		autism	drug safety, research reports, case studies

SS2: (vaccin!) AND (autism) AND (drug safety OR research reports OR case studies) Results: 1,500

Notes: This definitely narrowed it down and is yielding good results. However, there are still many strange articles based on research or studies that do not mention vaccinations and only mention autism in passing; however, they are still indexed under those terms. That is frustrating. At this point, I think it is important to go ahead and apply some limiters. I will narrow the default sources setting from major world publications to full text medical journals in order to retrieve reliable sources that have been reviewed.

SS3: (vaccin!) AND (autism) AND (drug safety OR research reports OR case studies) limited to full text medical journals, combined-- Results: 34

Notes: This is a great number of documents to work with. However, I am finding that the most recent pertinent articles are from 2003 and 2005.

Nelson, K. (2003) Thimerosal and autism? American Academy of Pediatrics, 111. p. 674-679.

Colgrove, J. & Bayer, R. (2005) Could It Happen Here? Vaccine Risk Controversies And The Specter Of Derailment; A successful immunization system depends mostly on people's willingness to have themselves and their children vaccinated. Health Affairs.

On an important medical topic such as this, I would also want to provide the patron with more recent articles. However, I do feel that it is important to keep the sources limited to medical journals. As a result, I will broaden my search statement and limit the results to the last five years.

SS4: (vaccin!) AND (autism) limited to full text medical journals, combined and to the last five years--Results: 22

Notes: This search did provide more recent hits, but they were not as relevant to the search as the older documents retrieved from the last search. This may be due to the database's turnaround time for uploading medical journaIs. At this point, I would probably try another database because of the importance of using reliable sources. However, our instructor made the valid point that most patrons will be looking for medical information written in layman's terms. Therefore, it would be worthwhile to expand the limiters to allow other sources while still keeping the dates extremely current. This will allow for more recent materials.

SS5:
(vaccin!) AND (autism) AND (drug safety OR research reports OR case studies) sources set to major world publications and limited to last six months--Results: 78

Associated Press (2010, March 13). Judge: vaccine, autism not connected. Newsday. Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic on April 24, 2010.

Ogilvie, M. (2010, February 3). Flawed autism study retracted; leading medical journal latest to retract research linking disorder to childhood vaccine. The Toronto Star. Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic on April 24, 2010.

Reflection: With the addition of the final articles, the patron will have the benefit of reading published research as well as more recent updates on the vaccine/autism debate. This will allow the patrons to see for themselves if the recent findings outweigh the case studies of the past. The search itself was difficult to conduct once the limiters were employed because this database has so many options for sources. This does allow, however, for a wide perspective on the searched topics.