Comparative study between focus group and verbal protocol in group in the improvement of controlled vocabulary in Physical Therapy: a qualitative: cognitive methodological proposal

Abstract

It was identified, between the focus group and verbal protocol in group, which qualitative methodological technique for data collections in the most appropriate for controlled vocabulary evaluation in the Health Sciences area, Physical Therapy category, in the cognitive context of users and in the perspective of specialized information retrieval system. The data collections with the focus group and verbal protocol in group occurred with teachers and students of a Physical Therapy Department of a Brazilian public university in the evaluating the DeCS-Health Sciences Descriptors  in Physical Therapy to the subject search in the LILACS database. The results demonstrated that both the focus group and the verbal protocol in group achieved a satisfactory performance in the evaluation of DeCS- Health Sciences Descriptors, Physical Therapy category, but with a greater relevance to the focus group pointed. In conclusion, we carried a qualitative- cognitive approach  methodological proposal of data collection, named "Focal Protocol", indicated the use of evaluation studies of controlled vocabularies in Health.