Introduction

For knowledge synthesis projects concerning pharmaceutical interventions, the development of a comprehensive search strategy generally requires the identification of various brand names and synonyms used for a particular drug. Building a list of these terms can take a substantial amount of time and effort, and often requires the consultation of numerous thesauri and authoritative sources. To save searchers time when building their list of terms, the author has developed a Python-based tool that queries various data sources (MeSH, RXNorm, Wikidata, and PubChem) and produces a search string that can be directly input into bibliographic databases.

Description

Using an HTML form, the searcher enters a drug name and specifies which data sources they would like to query. The tool then queries the selected data sources for the drug. If there is a match it identifies and retrieves available synonyms. The retrieved terms are then combined into a single search string that can be used in bibliographic databases such as Ovid Medline or CINAHL.

Outcomes

Leveraging existing data sources, the tool can quickly generate search strings for specific drugs. These strings return a more comprehensive set of search results than single text word searches and generating the strings requires minimal effort.

Discussion

Further work is needed to determine the effectiveness of the search strings generated by the tool, especially in comparison to manually created strings. Restrictive API access policies and fees have prevented the inclusion of some authoritative sources, which may limit the tool’s effectiveness.