Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR)

PubMed Health Services Research (HSR) Queries

Health Services Research (HSR) Queries using Research Methodology Filters

Category

Optimized For

Broad/ Narrow

PubMed Equivalent

appropriateness

sensitive/broad

100%/97%

inappropriate[tiab] OR records[mh]

specific/narrow

60%/99.8%

appropriateness[tiab]

process assessment

sensitive/broad

98%/67%

health services administration[mh] OR therapy[sh:noexp] OR adjusted[tiab]

specific/narrow 

52%/93%

practice*[tiab] OR adjusted[tiab]

outcome assessment

sensitive/broad

96%/53%

health services administration[mh] OR epidemiologic studies[mh] OR epidemiology[sh

specific/narrow

51%/93%

survival[tiab] OR mortality[mh]

costs

sensitive/broad

96%/93%

cost[tiab] OR costs[tiab] OR costs and cost analysis[mh] OR ec[sh]

specific/narrow

59%/99%

cost effectiveness*[tiab] OR saves[tiab] OR savings[tiab] OR saved[tiab] OR saver[tiab] OR savers[tiab] OR save[ti] OR saving[ti] OR (save[tw] OR saving[tw]) AND (ec[sh] OR economic OR dollar* OR money OR cost OR costs OR costing OR socioeconomic OR inexpensive OR efficiency OR financ* OR treatment outcome)

economics

sensitive/broad

100%/97%

costs[tiab] OR cost effective[tiab] OR economic[tiab]

specific/narrow

74%/99%

cost effective[tiab] OR sensitivity analys*[tiab] OR cost effectiveness[tiab]

qualitative studies

sensitive/broad

95%/70%

interview*[tiab] OR psychology[sh:noexp] OR health services administration[mh]

specific/narrow

61%/99%

qualitative[tiab] OR themes[tiab]

quality improvement studies

sensitive/broad

97.6%/53%

health services administration[mh] OR randomized controlled trial[pt] OR randomized controlled trials as topic[mh] OR random allocation[mh] OR random*[tiab] OR review[pt] OR compare*[tiab] NOT (animals[mh] NOT humans [mh])

specific/narrow

94.8%/95.7%

randomized controlled trial[pt] OR randomized controlled trials as topic[mh] OR controlled trial [tiab] OR controlled trials [tiab] OR control trial [tiab] OR control trials [tiab] OR journal [tiab] OR medline [tiab] OR randomized trial* [tiab] OR randomised trial* [tiab] OR random trial*[tiab] OR randomization trial* [tiab] NOT (animals[mh] NOT humans [mh])

 

Sensitive (broad) and specific (narrow) searches and approximate equivalent in the PubMed query language as recommended in Wilczynski NL et al and Wong SSL et al.

 

Last Reviewed: February 23, 2024