Comparison of search strategies in systematic reviews of adverse effects to other systematic reviews

A Review of: Golder, S., Wright, K., & Loke, Y.K. (2018). The development of search filters for adverse effects of surgical interventions in MEDLINE and Embase. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 35(2), 121-129. https://doi.org/10.1111/hir.12213 Abstract Objective – “To develop and validate search filters for MEDLINE and Embase for the adverse effects of surgical interventions” (p.121). Design – From a universe of systematic reviews, the authors created “an unselected cohort…where relevant articles are not chosen because of the presence of adverse effects terms” (p.123). The studies referenced in the cohort reviews were extracted to create an overall citation set. From this, three equal-sized sets of studies were created by random selection, and used for: development of a filter (identifying search terms); evaluation of the filter (testing how well it worked); and validation of the filter (assessing how well it retrieved relevant studies). Setting – Systematic reviews of adverse effects from the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE), published in 2014. Subjects – 358 studies derived from the references of 19 systematic reviews (352 available in MEDLINE, 348 available in Embase). Methods – Word and phrase frequency analysis was performed on the development set of articles to identify a list of terms, starting with the term creating the highest recall from titles and abstracts of articles, and continuing until adding new search terms produced no more new records recalled. The search strategy thus developed was then tested on the evaluation set of articles. In this case, using the strategy recalled all of the articles which could be obtained using generic search terms; however, adding specific search terms (such as the MeSH term “surgical site infection”) improved recall. Finally, the strategy incorporating both generic and specific search terms for adverse effects was used on the validation set of articles. Search strategies used are included in the article, as is a list in the discussion section of MeSH and Embase indexing terms specific to or suggesting adverse effects. Main Results – “In each case the addition of specific adverse effects terms could have improved the recall of the searches” (p. 127). This was true for all six cases (development, evaluation and validation study sets, for each of MEDLINE and Embase) in which specific terms were added to searches using generic terms, and recall percentages compared. Conclusion – While no filter can deliver 100% of items in a given standard set of studies on adverse effects (since title and abstract fields may not contain any indication of relevance to the topic), adding specific adverse effects terms to generic ones while developing filters is shown to improve recall for surgery-related adverse effects (similarly to drug-related adverse effects). The use of filters requires user engagement and critical analysis; at the same time, deploying well-constructed filters can have many benefits, including: helping users, especially clinicians, get a search started; managing a large and unwieldy set of citations retrieved; and to suggest new search strategies.

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Potential risks of rare serious adverse effects related to long‐term use of bisphosphonates: An overview of systematic reviews

Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics ◽

10.1111/jcpt.13056 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 45 (1) ◽

pp. 45-51 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Liqing Lu ◽

Lifen Lu ◽

Jianping Zhang ◽

Jian Li

Keyword(s):

Adverse Effects ◽

Systematic Reviews ◽

Overview Of Systematic Reviews ◽

Potential Risks

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Search strategies (filters) to identify systematic reviews in MEDLINE and Embase

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews ◽

10.1002/14651858.mr000054 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Juan VA Franco ◽

Virginia Garrote ◽

Valeria Vietto ◽

Camila Micaela Escobar Liquitay ◽

Ivan Solà

Keyword(s):

Systematic Reviews ◽

Search Strategies

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A systematic approach to searching: an efficient and complete method to develop literature searches

Journal of the Medical Library Association JMLA ◽

10.5195/jmla.2018.283 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 106 (4) ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Wichor M. Bramer ◽

Gerdien B. De Jonge ◽

Melissa L. Rethlefsen ◽

Frans Mast ◽

Jos Kleijnen

Keyword(s):

Systematic Reviews ◽

Search Strategy ◽

Optimization Technique ◽

Search Strategies ◽

Biomedical Literature ◽

Systematic Search ◽

Free Text ◽

Text Document ◽

Search Terms ◽

Free Text Search

Creating search strategies for systematic reviews, finding the best balance between sensitivity and specificity, and translating search strategies between databases is challenging. Several methods describe standards for systematic search strategies, but a consistent approach for creating an exhaustive search strategy has not yet been fully described in enough detail to be fully replicable. The authors have established a method that describes step by step the process of developing a systematic search strategy as needed in the systematic review. This method describes how single-line search strategies can be prepared in a text document by typing search syntax (such as field codes, parentheses, and Boolean operators) before copying and pasting search terms (keywords and free-text synonyms) that are found in the thesaurus. To help ensure term completeness, we developed a novel optimization technique that is mainly based on comparing the results retrieved by thesaurus terms with those retrieved by the free-text search words to identify potentially relevant candidate search terms. Macros in Microsoft Word have been developed to convert syntaxes between databases and interfaces almost automatically. This method helps information specialists in developing librarian-mediated searches for systematic reviews as well as medical and health care practitioners who are searching for evidence to answer clinical questions. The described method can be used to create complex and comprehensive search strategies for different databases and interfaces, such as those that are needed when searching for relevant references for systematic reviews, and will assist both information specialists and practitioners when they are searching the biomedical literature.

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Additional Search Strategies May Not Be Necessary for a Rapid Systematic Review

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice ◽

10.18438/b8fc77 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 150

Author(s):

Joanne L. Jordan

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Systematic Reviews ◽

Reference Lists ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Search Strategies ◽

Risk Of Bias ◽

Chronic Depression ◽

Randomized Controlled ◽

Central Database

A Review of: Westphal, A., Kriston, L., Hölzel, L.P., Härter, M., & von Wolff, A. (2014). Efficiency and contribution of strategies for finding randomized controlled trials: a case study from a systematic review on therapeutic interventions of chronic depression. Journal of Public Health Research, 3(2), 177. doi: 10.4081/jphr.2014.177 Abstract Objective – To evaluate the efficiency and contribution of additional searching strategies for finding randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in a systematic review. Design – A methodological case study. Setting – Biomedical literature. Methods – A sensitive search (defined as “the ratio of the number of relevant reports identified to the total number of relevant reports in existence”) was conducted of electronic databases, Cochrane CENTRAL database, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycInfo, CINAHL, BIOSIS, and Web of Science databases (Science and Social Science Citation Indexes). The following additional searching strategies were conducted: hand-searching contents of relevant journals (Archives of General Psychiatry, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, and Journal of Affective Disorders), citation tracking (forwards tracking using Social Science and Science Citation Index and backwards tracking by looking through reference lists of included studies), screening reference lists of relevant systematic reviews, searching clinical trials registers (ClinicalTrials.gov and ICTRP registers), and contacting first authors of included studies to find any similar unpublished studies. The number of articles identified by each of these methods was recorded and screened for inclusion in the systematic review. The authors calculated what they labelled as the ‘efficiency’ of each searching strategy (the number of included studies identified by the search method as a proportion of the full text articles screened) and the ‘contribution’ of the search strategies (the ratio of included studies identified by that method to the final number of included studies in the systematic review). The methodological quality of each included study was assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool, which is a critical appraisal checklist used to judge the study’s value in the systematic review. The meta-analysis in the systematic review was conducted with and without the studies identified by the additional searching strategies to assess their impact on the review’s findings. Main Results – In total 50 studies were identified, 42 from electronic database searches and 8 from additional search strategies. As illustrated by the results in Table 1, the most useful additional search strategy was screening reference lists of relevant systematic reviews. Journal hand-searching and contacting authors also contributed to the review. Of the eight studies identified by the additional search strategies none were judged to have a low risk of bias (four had high risk of bias and four were unclear). Of the 42 included studies from electronic searches only 11 were judged to have a low risk of bias, whereas 9 studies had a high risk of bias and 22 were unclear. Excluding the eight studies retrieved from additional search strategies in the systematic review meta-analysis did not influence the results on the effectiveness of the different interventions for chronic depression. These studies were found to be indexed correctly on the electronic databases, but were not identified in the initial search. Conclusion – Additional search strategies, especially screening reference lists of systematic reviews and hand-searching relevant journals, retrieved a substantial number of relevant studies for a systematic review of interventions for treating chronic depression. However, results of the review’s meta-analysis did not differ when these additional studies (rated as either high or unclear risk of bias) were not included and search methods were time consuming. It might be reasonable to rely on electronic searching strategies when resources for conducting a systematic review are limited or when doing a “rapid review.” The benefits and limitations of additional search strategies should be considered particularly when resources or time for conducting a systematic review are limited. If the electronic database search is sensitive and includes the Cochrane CENTRAL database additional search strategies may not be necessary, but these findings should be tested in other research areas.

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Can database-level MEDLINE exclusion filters in Embase and CINAHL be used to remove duplicate records without loss of relevant studies in systematic reviews? An exploratory study

Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association / Journal de l Association de bilbiothèques de la santé du Canada ◽

10.29173/jchla29437 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 41 (1) ◽

pp. 3-15

Author(s):

Zahra Premji ◽

Heather Ganshorn

Keyword(s):

Systematic Reviews ◽

Exploratory Study ◽

Search Strategies ◽

Medline Search ◽

Small Risk ◽

Cochrane Reviews ◽

Sample Set

Objective: To investigate whether using database filters to remove MEDLINE results within Embase (OVID) and CINAHL (EBSCO) would result in fewer records, without leading to any loss of studies included in the final review. Methods: We reviewed the included studies from a sample set of 20 Cochrane Reviews, and replicated the search strategies from those reviews in MEDLINE, Embase (both on the OVID platform) and CINAHL (EBSCO). Results were exported to EndNote; then relevant MEDLINE filters were applied within each database, and results were exported again. Filtered results were analysed to determine whether the filtered Embase and CINAHL results excluded relevant studies that were not identified in the original MEDLINE search. Results: Using the “Records from: Embase” filter resulted in no loss of included studies; however, the “Exclude MEDLINE journals” filter in Embase resulted in a failure to retrieve a large number of relevant studies. CINAHL’s filter for MEDLINE records resulted in a very small number of studies being lost. Conclusions: The “Records from: Embase” filter may be safely used for deduplication, though as it removes conferences, searchers may also want to review Conference abstracts separately using the Conferences filter. CINAHL’s MEDLINE filter comes with a small risk of filtering out relevant studies, but may be appropriate to use. Though we did not set out to address this question, our results also demonstrate that it is not advisable to rely on an unfiltered search of Embase alone in order to identify all relevant studies.

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Effectiveness and Safety of Acupuncture and Moxibustion in Pregnant Women with Noncephalic Presentation: An Overview of Systematic Reviews

Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine ◽

10.1155/2019/7036914 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2019 ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

Maite Miranda-Garcia ◽

Cristina Domingo Gómez ◽

Cristina Molinet-Coll ◽

Betina Nishishinya ◽

Ikram Allaoui ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Adverse Effects ◽

Pregnant Women ◽

Systematic Reviews ◽

Breech Presentation ◽

Lower Probability ◽

Efficacy And Safety ◽

Considerable Heterogeneity ◽

Pregnancy And Childbirth ◽

Acupuncture And Moxibustion ◽

Overview Of Systematic Reviews

Background. Breech presentation at the time of delivery is 3.8–4%. Fetuses that maintain a noncephalic presentation beyond 32 weeks will have a lower probability of spontaneous version before labor. Given the increasing interest in exploring the use of complementary medicine during pregnancy and childbirth, the moxibustion technique, a type of traditional Chinese medicine, could be another option to try turning a breech baby into a cephalic presentation. Objectives. To review the evidence from systematic reviews (SR) on the efficacy and safety of acupuncture and moxibustion in pregnant women with noncephalic presentation. Main Results. Our SR synthesizes the results from five clinical trials on pregnant women with a singleton noncephalic presentation. There is evidence that moxibustion reduces the number of noncephalic presentations at the time of birth compared with no treatment. The adverse effects that acupuncture and moxibustion can cause seem to be irrelevant. Most SRs agree that there are no adverse effects directly related to acupuncture and moxibustion. Conclusions. Even though the results obtained are positive and the five reviews conclude that moxibustion reduces the number of noncephalic presentations at birth (alone or combined with postural techniques or acupuncture), there is considerable heterogeneity between them. Better methodologically designed studies are required in the future to reaffirm this conclusion.

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