Template talk:Reliable sources for medical articles

Quote or not to quote?
Should the name of the article be quoted? It matters if it's a multi-word article. I just tried the template on Muscular dystrophy, and unquoted (free articles) I get these results. Quoted, these. The difference is exactly this set of articles. So the question is, is this latter set relevant to the topic "muscular dystrophy"? Klortho (talk) 04:13, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hum I am not sure. No strong fellings one way or the other. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:29, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, then maybe without quotes, the way you have it, might be marginally better. I can imagine cases where the page name is too specific, and when searched as a quoted phrase, would not yield as useful a result set as when searched for as a list of keywords. Klortho (talk) 13:38, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Making this live
Before making this live the documentation for this template needs to be complete and there needs to be some community support signing off on it. To get community support, I recommend first getting opinions from participants in WP:Medicine, then asking participants in similar projects, then asking members of the general Wikipedia community.

Similar projects would be those projects which use some template to link a Wikipedia article to some external website. Here are some examples:
 * 1) User talk:VIAFbot - This bot went to every biography on Wikipedia and if WorldCat had an authority control identifier for the subject of that article, then it put a template linking the article to their library listing of that person.
 * 2) GLAM/smarthistory - a project to apply templates which link out to Khan Academy videos on art and culture
 * 3) Template:Library resources box - John Mark Ockerbloom's proposal to add a link to all Wikipedia articles which could connect any user to resources in their local library

When asking general community members for their opinions, I recommend posting at the village pump WP:PUMP.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   13:27, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
 * A fair bit of support was expressed here at WT:MED. Would you be able to help with the documentation for the template?  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:40, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Are we ready to post to Village Pump? Discuss here. Klortho (talk) 00:21, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Project Med
There is an organization called Wiki Project Med which seeks to provide assistance to Wikipedians who are engaged in developing health content. The participants in this organization are highly active Wikipedians. When this project is ready to receive comments, I encourage its developers to ask Wiki Project Med to review it and to ask their membership to solicit comments about this project from other people who are interested in such things.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   13:31, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Systematic reviews
It says, "For systematic reviews (preferred when available) click here".

Systematic reviews are only preferred for certain, very narrow kinds of questions. "Does this treatment work?" is a good question for a systematic review. "Which biochemical pathways are involved?" is a lousy question for a systematic review—but a good one for a plain old review. So is "What are the most common treatments?" and "Where does this vein go?" There are many questions that should never be sourced to a systematic review. At minimum, I think that we need to strike the "preferred when available" language. However, I'm thinking that there may be advantages to removing the line altogether. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * They are typically preferred when available (ie it is a question systematic reviews address). This is true primarily for treatment questions and prevalence rates. As you state many question are not addressable by systematic reviews and thus they would not be available. IMO directing people to systematic reviews is helpful. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:17, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

This actually is not accurate. I'll be working on issues like this in the systematic review article over the next few weeks. You can do a systematic review on any question at all - and not restricted to health even. There are different methodologies for systematic reviews of causes, prognosis and so on (and there are different search strategies for finding them - I'll be adding links to articles about that those to the article too). But a review can always be more or less systematic. A good systematic review would always be a preferable source to anything else. Given how many competing beliefs even about biochemical pathways there can be, it would be by no means strange for someone to do a systematic review of evidence on that question. Just to pull an example of a systematic review on a classic epidemiological question: consider the question, do dairy products cause breast cancer? Here's a systematic review. Picking some random primary study on that question could be misleading, as it can always be. Systematic reviews of interventions were rare in the 1970s - now there are hundreds every week. Systematic reviews of other study types (including qualitative research) and for other questions are growing in number, and methodological sophistication. And growing outside health as well. If you can ask a question, and people study that question, then you can do a review with great selection bias etc - or do it systematically and minimize the bias. Hildabast (talk) 12:37, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The kicker of course is "good" systematic review. There are many methodologically weak systematic reviews, and many called systematic reviews that aren't. And just because a systematic review is designed to answer a particular question or set of questions, doesn't mean that every random statement in its background or discussion has been reviewed systematically. Hildabast (talk) 12:40, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * People aren't going to interpret "available" as meaning "the systematic review is directly about this question". They're going to interpret "available" as meaning "The systematic review is 'about' whether or not salt intake affects blood pressure, but it is 'available', so I should cite it for statements about anatomy, and for statements about where the authors work, and I should ignore this much more recent literature review, because systematic reviews are 'preferred when available'."
 * Hildabast is also correct about the fact that a systematic review can be performed just as poorly as any other study. Even if the systematic review is technically solid, they often find no or weak evidence on disputed points, and that's getting overplayed.  We also have enough problems with people deleting informative, encyclopedic statements (e.g., the indisputable fact that mammography is recommended by major public health agencies around the world to women of certain ages) and replacing them with "This one systematic review found no evidence" that I'm concerned that we'll be destroying articles.  "The evidence, as assessed by one particular method, is kind of weak" is not an encyclopedic explanation of the current mainstream view on something.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * What do you suggest changing it to? Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:50, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

How about this?
 * For a list of review articles from the last 5 years at PubMed, click here (limit to free articles or to systematic reviews)

It uses less screen real estate and provides the same links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:08, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes short and to the point. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:08, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Consensus for addition to talk pages
Is here Doc James  (talk ·contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Trip gives primary sources
Sometimes the link to Trip only directs users to primary sources, which are not ideal since WP:MEDRS directs that editors should use secondary sources. The complaint is here - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   20:34, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Will ask for a link to just secondary sources. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:18, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Problems rendering characters in template
A user found that this template on the talk page of Huntington's disease renders the article name as as Huntington%26%2339%3Bs+disease. See the discussion here - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine. I just confirmed that I see this also on the article talk page.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   20:34, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Have fixed. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:13, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Apostrophe's
The template does appear to to handle apostrophe's in article titles. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:14, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Synonyms
Hi, I think we need to make this template capable of taking into consideration synonyms to account for spelling differences and other variations. For instance pseudomembranous colitis can also be called antibiotic-induced diarrhea or diarrhoea. I think it would be great if we could put in additional synonyms manually. Fuse809 (talk) 05:33, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ Documented here. I tried it out on Talk:Pseudomembranous_colitis, but didn't do exhaustive testing.  Could you please double-check that I didn't break anything? Klortho (talk) 13:01, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh sorry for not replying, I did and you didn't. Thanks, by the way. Fuse809 (talk) 14:32, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Limiting to English reviews
Hi, I think it'd be advantageous if on top of the additional two conditions one can impose on the template for review articles (namely the free articles and systematic reviews, which are up to the user to decide whether or not they wish to impose it on the articles) we have limiting to English articles as part of this template. Many English speakers only know English and if they know other languages they usually don't know them well, in my experience. Fuse809 (talk) 14:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
 * They are links to PubMed and PubMed Health, respectively. Isn't it true that the vast majority of articles there are English?  Are you really having a problem that the search results are crowded by too many non-English articles?  Klortho (talk) 11:42, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

True, most of the majority of drugs/disease states have plenty of English results, but if you look up drugs like metamizole and tilidine that are nearly solely used in non-English-speaking countries you'll get a heap of non-English articles and few English results; hence it might be helpful to have this as an option. Like I'm not saying we should impose it systematically, but I think in cases like these two drugs and other drugs for which you'd get few English results I think it might be nice to have the capability of adding this additional filter. Sort of like as a user-provided extra character to get the template to offer this as an additional option. Fuse809 (talk) 13:15, 19 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Many non-English articles have an abstract in English, so I'm not convinced that this is a good idea. However, once you're at PubMed, you can click "Show additional filters" (on the left sidebar), choose "Languages", and then choose whatever languages you want.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:21, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah I realise this, I do that all the time, but what's the point of this template? To direct people that might be technologically challenged to reliable sources that they could understand. Fuse809 (talk) 15:43, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
 * This is to help direct people to 1) high quality sources and 2) high quality open sources. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 16:05, 19 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, this template is just meant to be an aid, to provide a starting point for those looking for reliable sources. It's not expected to provide the best results in every case, and I don't think it would be worthwhile to try to make it so flexible as to provide context-sensitive filters, which is what you're asking for. Klortho (talk) 03:49, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think this template is intended for "technologically challenged" people. I think it's intended to help people who haven't practically memorized WP:MEDRS.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:21, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

OK, I will accept that the people have spoken. I am glad that I was at least able to get a fair trial of my idea in the WikiProject Medicine community. Brenton (talk|email) (I automatically watch all pages I edit) 14:18, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Systematic reviews, question 2
Hi, people, I think we should impose, additionally, on systematic reviews that this template gives such that they're only from the past 5 years. We impose the within the past 5 years requirement on reviews in general in this template because of the fact that medical information gets very frequently updated and hence five years is a nice "rule of thumb" to impose on articles, especially review articles as they summarise the currently available information. I think, however, that we need to impose this on systematic reviews as well, because systematic reviews summarise currently available information in a systematic, methodical way, hence, if anything, for them the 5 years guideline should be enforced even more strictly as they're more likely to become out of date if we go beyond this guideline. Thoughts? Brenton (talk|email) (I automatically watch all pages I edit) 14:16, 20 June 2014 (UTC)


 * But, systematic reviews are produced an order of magnitude less frequently. At random, I did a check on Conjunctivitis.  The systematic reviews link goes here.  Some things to note:
 * 1. This link isn't really to a search limited to systematic reviews. I think it needs to have the "&filters=systematic" added to it, thus.
 * 2. That result gives 58 results. If you limit it to the last five years, you get six results.
 * 3. Of the 52 results that are older than five years, there are a lot of good sources there. I'm not a medical professional, so I'd defer to more expert opinions, but it seems to me that five years is too strict a criterion for picking systematic reviews.
 * Meanwhile, does anyone have a problem if I add the "systematic" filter to the search link? Or, was this done on purpose? Klortho (talk) 18:58, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

"medical" or "health" or something else in template?
this is a great tool and i would like to start using it all over the place. but the limitation to "medical" is going to be a problem in articles where MEDRS is applied to cover health issues. MEDRS is very careful in its intro to reference "health" and "biomedical" as well as "medical". Would folks be OK with changing "medical" to "health" in the template? (btw I have no idea what happens to already-used instances of a template, when it is changed...)Jytdog (talk) 15:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * two examples: health effects of organic food; what effect exposure to endocrine disruptors has on whether a person becomes gay (two actual discussions going on now). These are both topics in which MEDRS should be applied and where it would be useful to provide the template on the Talk page.Jytdog (talk) 15:41, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'd prefer health over medical. People seem to get a very narrow view when the term medical is used (disease, etc.) while MEDRS is garnered more towards a broader scope of health topics. I have seen cases where editors appear confused when discussing health content and thinking MEDRS doesn't apply, so this seems like a good change. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:02, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Great idea Jytdog and done. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 00:36, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

HTAs
Can we provide the actual search with the underlying page term used for?


 * "The Centre for Reviews and Dissemination database search page for HTAs"

Like we do for the other ones? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:51, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I think this link should work:
 * https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/CRDWeb/ResultsPage.asp?Active_Results_Tab=1&DatabaseID=0&PageNumber=1&RecordsPerPage=20&SearchSessionID=2448649&LineID=2246998&SearchFor=*++IN+HTA+&SearchXML=%26lt%3Badvanced%26gt%3B%26lt%3Bsearchfor+field%3D%26gt%3B*++IN+HTA+%26lt%3B%2Fsearchfor%26gt%3B%26lt%3B%2Fadvanced%26gt%3B&UserID=0&ShowPreviews=0&ShowPubmed=0&SearchSortField=0&SearchSortDirection=1&ShowSelected=1
 * The DARE database is unfortunately closed, so it doesn't have any content since 2015 — and as for EEDs, I'm not sure they will be very useful for us. Carl Fredrik  talk 08:53, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Yupp, it should work. Carl Fredrik  talk 08:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * What I am wanting User:CFCF is for it to search for the of the article when the link is clicked.  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 14:42, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Let me test this:

https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/CRDWeb/ResultsPage.asp?Active_Results_Tab=0&DatabaseID=0&PageNumber=1&RecordsPerPage=20&SearchSessionID=0&LineID=0&SearchFor=%28%29+IN+HTA+&SearchXML=%26amp%3Blt%3Badvanced%26amp%3Bgt%3B%26amp%3Blt%3Bsearchfor+field%3D%26amp%3Bgt%3B%28%29+IN+HTA+%26amp%3Blt%3B%2Fsearchfor%26amp%3Bgt%3B%26amp%3Blt%3B%2Fadvanced%26amp%3Bgt%3B&UserID=0&ShowPreviews=0&ShowPubmed=0&SearchSortField=0&SearchSortDirection=1&ShowSelected=0  Hmm, issues... Carl Fredrik talk 19:11, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Have emailed to ask. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 18:29, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

[Title/abstract] pubmed filter
This template currently encloses the article title in quotes when searching pubmed. Should we append  immediately after the quotation marks in the pubmed search for reviews published in the last 5 years? This would filter out reviews that don't include the corresponding article's title in the title or abstract of a review.  Seppi  333  (Insert 2¢) 07:03, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * To illustrate the difference this makes, compare this search to this one.  Seppi  333  (Insert 2¢) 07:06, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

PubMed Health will be discontinued 31 October 2018
The link called "or to systematic reviews links to PubMed Health. In that page, they warn that "PubMed Health will be discontinued on October 31, 2018. Read more."

I'm not sure how this will affect the template, but perhaps this one link will need to be updated. Just a heads up!

--Treetear (talk) 11:18, 23 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Mentioned link is now completely dead on all pages featuring this template. --Treetear (talk) 23:13, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I posted on WT:MED in hopes of attention, and now pinging in this discussion who added the link initially in 2013, maybe you have a good idea of where this has been moved? PubMed or Bookshelf for example? -> When clicking the "Read more" in my quote above, then Ctrl+F "systematic", it seems that a specialized PubMed search for Systematic Reviews may be the solution. --Treetear (talk) 23:29, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I've removed the link for now, as that is clearly no longer usable. If we find another recommended link that does a similar job, it's easy enough to replace it. --RexxS (talk) 23:35, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping. Yes too bad they shut it down. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 02:26, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping. Yes too bad they shut it down. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 02:26, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Can this template be edited?
Can it be edited in the sense of adjusting which databases we recommend? Over all I think it's a very helpful template for medical article Talk pages. However, for psychiatric topics, the template does not mention crucial databases, such as PsycINFO and PTSDpubs. Can PTSDpubs be added to the template for trauma-related articles? And can PsychINFO be added for all psychology, psychiatry, mental health, and neuroscience articles? Thanks! - Mark D Worthen PsyD  (talk)  19:59, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * See also PsycINFO at a glance (one-page PDF with interesting statistics and a brief overview), and PsycINFO Neuroscience Coverage.  - Mark D Worthen PsyD   (talk)  20:03, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Not sure how to fine tone to that degree. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 02:27, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

We could add a parameter something like Psyc and then use that to indicate different databases. I'd be happy to knock up a sandbox version for testing if somebody would like to give a (short) list of links for psychiatric topics, and an indication of where in the template they ought to display, please.

I've made a demo of the simplest possible layout in Template:Reliable sources for medical articles/sandbox:







The parameter reads the first three characters of the topic name and is case-insensitive. --RexxS (talk) 15:04, 14 November 2018 (UTC)


 * That is awesome RexxS! Thank you very much. As I investigate further, I suggest waiting on a PsycINFO link - it is a subscription (paid) service with different options, e.g., 24-hour access vs. one-year access. Most university and some public libraries subscribe. I will see if it is, or might become, avialable via Wikipedia Library, and I will see if I can improve the (Start class) article on PsychINFO, which we could perhaps link to in the future. (I wouldn't link to it now b/c it would confuse more than help.)


 * On the other hand, PTSDpubs is free. The URL for PTSDpubs is . Resource links: About PTSDpubs; PTSDpubs FAQ;  "Ask a librarian" - National Center for PTSD Reference Librarians;  ProQuest Search tips.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD   (talk)  03:25, 15 November 2018 (UTC)


 * UPDATE: I've concluded that WP:PSYCH needs to get off its duff and create a "Reliable sources for psychological articles" template. I'm a member of WikiProject Psychology, so I'm talking to myself here too. ;o)  - Mark D Worthen PsyD   (talk)  (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 15:24, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 21 May 2022
Remove the "|link=" from the image File:Library.svg. The license of the image is Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported and we may use the image under the condition that we "give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made." Christian75 (talk) 07:37, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Terasail [✉️] 15:30, 21 May 2022 (UTC)