Assessing the Quality of Biomedical Boolean Search Strings Generated by Prompted and Unprompted Models Using ChatGPT: A Pilot Study

This pilot study investigated the use of Generative AI using ChatGPT to produce Boolean search strings to query PubMed. The goals were to determine if ChatGPT could be used in search string formation and if so, which approach was most effective. Research outputs from published systematic reviews were compared to outputs from AI generated search strings. While moderate overlap in publication retrieval between published and AI generated search strings was noted, the numbers were not sufficient to completely replicate published search strings and little difference was observed between prompted and unprompted GPT in using ChatGPT.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Medical Reference Services Quarterly on 2024-12-17, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02763869.2024.2440848.