Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: The Probable Cochrane Behavioral Medicine Field has a mandate to map and disseminate studies which make up the evidence base in this discipline and make the information available in a user-friendly format. To meet this aim we are building a website featuring a database of behavioral medicine systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials.
Objectives: The objective of this poster is to describe the process by which the Probable Behavioral Medicine Field has constructed a specialized register from which our database records will be extracted.
Methods: We began by defining the scope of behavioral medicine through a survey of field experts. The subsequent core terms were used to build a preliminary search strategy. The systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials retrieved by the strategy generated a comprehensive list of modalities and became our official scope list. A thesaurus of terms was then devised so that all studies identified by our search strategy for the specialized register can be coded consistently; these terms will be also be used as browsable criteria in the future database. Our search strategy was adapted for and run on the following databases: The Cochrane Library, Medline, CINAHL and PsycInfo. The results are currently being added to the specialized register and coded accordingly.
Results: The Probable Behavioral Medicine Field's specialized register currently contains over 11,000 records. The records are coded for the following criteria: Study Design, Health Condition, Intervention, Setting, Participants, and Provider. This register constitutes the first layer of the evidence base of behavioral medicine interventions.
Conclusions: A systematic approach has been employed to construct a specialized register in behavioral medicine interventions. The end product will be a comprehensive database of interventions, which can either be searched using user-specified terms or browsed using pre-defined criteria. The methods used to generate the database records (i.e. the search strategies and coding scheme) will be developed, adapted and refined to ensure relevant scope, currency and ease of record retrieval for all users.
Objectives: The objective of this poster is to describe the process by which the Probable Behavioral Medicine Field has constructed a specialized register from which our database records will be extracted.
Methods: We began by defining the scope of behavioral medicine through a survey of field experts. The subsequent core terms were used to build a preliminary search strategy. The systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials retrieved by the strategy generated a comprehensive list of modalities and became our official scope list. A thesaurus of terms was then devised so that all studies identified by our search strategy for the specialized register can be coded consistently; these terms will be also be used as browsable criteria in the future database. Our search strategy was adapted for and run on the following databases: The Cochrane Library, Medline, CINAHL and PsycInfo. The results are currently being added to the specialized register and coded accordingly.
Results: The Probable Behavioral Medicine Field's specialized register currently contains over 11,000 records. The records are coded for the following criteria: Study Design, Health Condition, Intervention, Setting, Participants, and Provider. This register constitutes the first layer of the evidence base of behavioral medicine interventions.
Conclusions: A systematic approach has been employed to construct a specialized register in behavioral medicine interventions. The end product will be a comprehensive database of interventions, which can either be searched using user-specified terms or browsed using pre-defined criteria. The methods used to generate the database records (i.e. the search strategies and coding scheme) will be developed, adapted and refined to ensure relevant scope, currency and ease of record retrieval for all users.