Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Systematic reviews of qualitative data and mixed methods reviews play an important role in dementia care and care planning. Finding qualitative data in medical databases to inform reviews can be difficult.
Objectives:
1. To investigate whether qualitative search filters help with finding qualitative research in dementia.
2. To find out which filter works best in terms of effectiveness and ease of use.
3. To examine the effectiveness of three qualitative filters on four major databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL).
Methods: We identified qualitative or mixed methods systematic reviews in dementia care by searching the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE), the Health Evidence database (http://www.healthevidence.org/), MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL. Qualitative studies identified in these reviews were used to form a test set of literature. Three qualitative methodology filters were selected (one with few, broad-based terms, one with many specific free-text terms and thesaurus terms for qualitative studies), adapted for the four databases, and were tested for sensitivity, precision and specificity against the test literature.
Results: The results for the performance of each filter for each database will be presented.
Conclusions: This work will help to inform whether it is useful to utilise a search filter to identify qualitative literature in dementia, and which is the most effective filter for locating this literature in four major databases.
Objectives:
1. To investigate whether qualitative search filters help with finding qualitative research in dementia.
2. To find out which filter works best in terms of effectiveness and ease of use.
3. To examine the effectiveness of three qualitative filters on four major databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL).
Methods: We identified qualitative or mixed methods systematic reviews in dementia care by searching the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE), the Health Evidence database (http://www.healthevidence.org/), MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL. Qualitative studies identified in these reviews were used to form a test set of literature. Three qualitative methodology filters were selected (one with few, broad-based terms, one with many specific free-text terms and thesaurus terms for qualitative studies), adapted for the four databases, and were tested for sensitivity, precision and specificity against the test literature.
Results: The results for the performance of each filter for each database will be presented.
Conclusions: This work will help to inform whether it is useful to utilise a search filter to identify qualitative literature in dementia, and which is the most effective filter for locating this literature in four major databases.