Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Overviews of systematic reviews (OoRs), a new type of study, are considered as the ‘friendly front end’ to The Cochrane Library for healthcare decision-making. The Cochrane Library is a collection of six databases, one of which is the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) that is the leading resource for systematic reviews in healthcare. There are 7819 references in the CDSR until 2013 Issue 3, but find an OoR can be a challenge.
Objectives: To develop and validate an optimal search filter for retrieving overviews of systematic reviews via The Cochrane Library.
Methods: We performed an analytical survey in The Cochrane Library and performed a handsearch at 7779 systematic reviews (published reviews and protocols) recorded in the CDSR database until 2013 Issue 2. The main outcome measure was the search filter capacity retrieving OoRs assessed by the screening test of terms and its combinations. The 95% confidence interval was applied with the screening test.
Results: The proportion of OoRs in the CDRS database was 0.39% (95% IC 0.27, 0.56). The first search filter developed presented a high capacity for retrieving OoRs (Table 1). After combining terms the search filter capacity was maximized, reducing false positives and negatives (Table 1).
Conclusions: New empirical search strategies have been validated to optimize retrieval from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (via The Cochrane Library) of a new type of study, the overview of systematic reviews, called as ‘friendly front end’ to The Cochrane Library for healthcare decision-making.
Objectives: To develop and validate an optimal search filter for retrieving overviews of systematic reviews via The Cochrane Library.
Methods: We performed an analytical survey in The Cochrane Library and performed a handsearch at 7779 systematic reviews (published reviews and protocols) recorded in the CDSR database until 2013 Issue 2. The main outcome measure was the search filter capacity retrieving OoRs assessed by the screening test of terms and its combinations. The 95% confidence interval was applied with the screening test.
Results: The proportion of OoRs in the CDRS database was 0.39% (95% IC 0.27, 0.56). The first search filter developed presented a high capacity for retrieving OoRs (Table 1). After combining terms the search filter capacity was maximized, reducing false positives and negatives (Table 1).
Conclusions: New empirical search strategies have been validated to optimize retrieval from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (via The Cochrane Library) of a new type of study, the overview of systematic reviews, called as ‘friendly front end’ to The Cochrane Library for healthcare decision-making.