Elsevier

Journal of Clinical Epidemiology

Volume 77, September 2016, Pages 118-124
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology

Original Article
Prospective comparison of search strategies for systematic reviews: an objective approach yielded higher sensitivity than a conceptual one

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2016.05.002Get rights and content
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open access

Abstract

Background

In the development of search strategies for systematic reviews, “conceptual approaches” are generally recommended to identify appropriate search terms for those parts of the strategies for which no validated search filters exist. However, “objective approaches” based on search terms identified by text analysis are increasingly being applied.

Objectives

To prospectively compare an objective with a conceptual approach for the development of search strategies.

Methods

Two different MEDLINE search strategies were developed in parallel for five systematic reviews covering a range of topics and study designs. The Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) applied an objective approach, and external experts applied a conceptual approach for the same research questions. For each systematic review, the citations retrieved were combined and the overall pool of citations screened to determine sensitivity and precision.

Results

The objective approach yielded a weighted mean sensitivity and precision of 97% and 5%. The corresponding values for the conceptual approach were 75% and 4%.

Conclusion

Our findings indicate that the objective approach applied by IQWiG for search strategy development yields higher sensitivity than and similar precision to a conceptual approach. The main advantage of the objective approach is that it produces consistent results across searches.

Keywords

Information storage and retrieval
Medline
Data mining
Sensitivity and specificity
Prospective studies
Reproducibility of results

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Funding: None.

Conflict of interest: All authors are IQWiG employees and developed the presented approach within the framework of their work at IQWiG.