The identification of clinically important elements within medical journal abstracts: Patient-Population-Problem, Exposure-Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, Duration and Results (PECODR).

Background: Information retrieval in primary care is becoming more difficult as the volume of medical information held in electronic databases expands. The lexical structure of this information might permit automatic indexing and improved retrieval.

Objective: To determine the possibility of identifying the key elements of clinical studies, namely Patient-Population-Problem, Exposure-Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, Duration and Results (PECODR), from abstracts of medical journals.

Providing internet lessons to oncology patients and family members: a shared project.

The paper describes the steps in a pilot study taken to develop and evaluate an Internet intervention for cancer patients and family members. The intervention was a shared project of two hospital departments; a volunteer oncology support service, Hope & Cope, and the Health Services Library. Forty subjects were surveyed on their computer use and interest, and of these, half used the Internet to access health and medical information.