Evaluation of search interfaces in evidence based medicine databases

The existence of proper search interfaces in evidence based medicine databases will lead to quick access to evidence based medicine. Given The necessity and their importance, the aim of this study is an evaluation of search interfaces in evidence based medicine databases.
This study was an applied research, which was carried through survey method. The study population was 12 evidence based medicine databases including evidence based medicine subscription databases of electronic library website of Tehran University of medical sciences and other evidence based medicine databases. The validity of the checklist was confirmed by 3 experts of medical library and information sciences. The collected data were analyzed after being entered into the statistical software Excel using descriptive statistics.
The findings showed that the search components by using Boolean operators and sets (69%), phrase searching (50%), and truncation and stemming (50%) have the most points, and other components received low scores. moreover, totally, all the databases received points less than 50 percent, and the databases were in an undesirable status.
Despite the necessity of the existence of proper search interfaces in the evidence based medicine databases, compliance with elements of the proper search interface was very low. It is recommended that designers and database developers use proper search interfaces in creating the databases.