T HE L IBRARY OF T RINITY C OLLEGE D UBLIN, THE U NIVERSITY OF D UBLIN L EABHARLANN C HOLÁISTE NA T...

THE LIBRARY OF TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLINLEABHARLANN CHOLÁISTE NA TRÍONÓIDE, OLLSCOIL ÁTHA CLIATH

David MocklerMedical Librarian

Date 10/09/15

Planning, designing and implementing search strategies for systematic reviews

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The Library of Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

The literature searching process:

• “is not an exact science but an art.” Samuel Butler

• Attempts to identify the greatest number of studies relevant to the review whilst minimising the capture of irrelevant citations.

• Is one of the main components of a systematic review as it aids in the proper identification of studies for inclusion

PLANNING, DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING SEARCH STRATEGIES FOR SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS



Is there a recent review in your research area ?

• Check Cochrane Library

• Cochrane Systematic reviews : Cochrane reviews and protocols

• Database of Reviews of Effects: Other systematic reviews appraised by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination

• Check PubMed/Medline

• Check Google/Google Scholar

Is there a review currently under way in your research area?

• Check PROSPERO - identify on-going reviews which can help to avoid unplanned duplication

GETTING STARTED

http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/



1. Describe each PICO component

2. Start with primary concepts

3. Find synonyms

a) Identify subject headings

b) Identify keywords

4. Add other components of PICO question to narrow citations (may use study filter)

5. Examine abstracts

6. Use search strategy in other databases (may need adapting)

COMPONENTS OF ELECTRONIC SEARCHING

http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Search_filters_%26_hedges


The Library of Trinity College Dublin, The University of DublinThe Library of Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

Selecting Databases



Database selection:

• Is an important part of the systematic review process because it ultimately determines the evidence base for the review

• Determined by the topic and will be unique for each project

• Dictated by the free and subscription databases available to the searcher

SELECTING DATABASES



– Generally I would always search - PubMed/Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, Cochrane Library,

– Trial registries WHO ICTRP, clinicaltrials.gov (may include completed but unpublished trials)

– Depending on review - AMED, PsycINFO, OTseeker, PEDro etc.

– Supplemental searches SCOPUS, Web of Science

• cited reference searching

• Can turn up unique items and can complement a traditional database search.

– Regulatory data – US Food and Drug Administration is one of the largest sources of regulatory data. The FDA’s approval process for new drugs and devices involves submission of data that may not be published elsewhere esp good for drug interventions/medical devices

SELECTING DATABASES

http://www.fda.gov/



Selecting Search Terms



– Good searches are driven by well-defined research questions. PICO helps frame the search and identify search terms

– Think about synonyms of key concepts

– Think about variations in language:

• Spelling - American/British English e.g., anaesthesia/anesthesia, analyse/analyze, oestrogen/estrogen

• Variations of the same concept - neuropathy, neuropathic, neuropathies and neuropathological

– Inclusion/exclusion criteria may not be appropriate in a search strategy and may be better addressed when studies are evaluated. Adding too many restrictions to searches, such as age limits, can compromise results by excluding potentially relevant articles

SELECTING SEARCH TERMS



There is no need to reinvent the wheel:

– Identify a target paper that directly addresses the question in hand with a simple scoping search – (Tip - use title search)

– Identify existing SRs that incorporate elements of your review.

– If doing a Cochrane review some Review Groups publish strategies they use to identify studies in their area for their own specialised registries

– Perform a preliminary search and see if the results match articles already identified. May need to refine search at this stage

– Your search should help refine the topic and objective of the overview being written.

– Searching the literature is an iterative process

SELECTING SEARCH TERMS



Constructing Your Search



– Keyword search (Natural Language Searching)

• Journal/periodical title

• Words from the title of an article

• Words from the abstract of an article

• Authors’ names

• Author assigned keywords

– Subject heading/descriptor search

TYPES OF SEARCHES





• Subject heading searching attempts to solve the problems of using different terms to describe the same concept or process

• Subject headings are assigned to articles when they are added to a database

SUBJECT HEADING SEARCH









For example, let's say you're trying to find all the information you can on the topic of World War I.

– World War I?

– First World War?

– WWI?

– World War One?

– Great War?

– War to end all Wars?


LCSH: World War 1914-1918



Swine Flu

‒ Swine flu

‒ Swine influenza

‒ H1n1

‒ H1n1 swine

‒ Swine-origin influenza

‒ Etc.

Subject Headings - Influenza A Virus, h1n1 subtype (PubMed)

Influenza, Swine (CINAHL)

'swine influenza‘ (PubMed)




Keyword Searching

• To create a precise and thorough search you will need to spend some time gathering together relevant search terms and phrases.

• Decide what keyword(s) best describe your concepts

• Identify synonyms, plurals, alternative spelling keywords

• Keywords can be used across all databases

• Restrict your keyword searches to the title and abstract fields

Subject Searching

• Identify in each resource the correct subject heading(s) that best describes your concepts

• Subject headings can be unique to each resource

CONSTRUCTING YOUR SEARCH



Looks for words in any field within a database’s records - title, author, abstract etc. You can also specify the field in which you wish to search

Can find results that use your search term in a different way than you intended– banking used in reference to airplanes, not finance

Some problems:– Plurals: e.g. child or children

– Different spellings: e.g. esthetic or aesthetic

– Different terminology: e.g. pavement or sidewalk

– Prefixes: prenatal, pre natal, pre-natal

KEYWORD SEARCHING



• Amazing

• "It's amazing a film so poor made it to the cinemas“

• Epic

• "no investment has ever been such an epic mistake as the decision to fund this film“

• Unbelievable

• "it's unbelievable anyone can sit through this rubbish"

KEYWORD ANOMALIES



NINA controversy

JENSEN, R. 'No Irish Need Apply': A Myth of Victimization. Journal of Social History. 2, 405, 2002

New York Times – 29 Examples

A variation, “Irish need not apply,” turned up at least seven times, and there were other examples, from “No Irishman need apply” to “Irishmen need not apply” to the phrase “No Irish.”

KEYWORD ANOMALIES



• Boolean operators are used to combine words and phrases together when searching

• The operators can narrow or broaden a search

• There are three operators AND, OR, NOT

BOOLEAN OPERATORS



• Will find both terms in a document

e.g. exercise therapy AND stroke will find documents that contain both terms

• AND narrows your search as it ‘forces’ the database to return only documents that contain both terms

AND



AND



AND



• Will find documents that contain at least one of the terms searched for

e.g. college OR university will find documents that contain either term

• This search will also return documents that contain both terms i.e. college AND university

• OR is used to broaden a search. It does this by including more terms.

OR



OR



OR



OR is a good operator to use if you want to include synonyms or acronyms in your search

• Cancer OR neoplasm

• Physiotherapy OR Physical therapy

• Adrenaline OR Epinephrine

• Adolescent OR teenager OR youth OR teen OR Adolescence

• France OR french

• AIDs OR Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

OR



• The use of parentheses in a search statement to separate elements of the statement.

• It divides a search strategy into logical groups

(Swine flu OR Swine influenza OR H1n1 OR H1n1 swine OR Swine-origin influenza ) AND vaccine

(Adolescent OR teenager OR youth OR teen OR Adolescence) AND (Sport OR exercise)

NESTING



• Will exclude documents containing a particular term

e.g. virus NOT computer will find documents that contain the term virus but will exclude those documents that also include the term computer

depression NOT financial

• Not focuses a search by reducing the number of articles returned in a search

NOT



NOT



• Proximity operators also vary by database, but some common ones include: w# = with n# = near adj# = adjcaent

• With/adjacent specifies that words appear in the order you type them in.

• Near specifies that words appear in any order

• Substitute the # with the number of words that may appear in between. If no number is given, then it specifies an exact phrase.

e.g. tax N5 reform to find results that would match tax reform as well as reform of income tax.

PROXIMITY OPERATORS



Truncation also called stemming, is a technique that broadens your search to include various word endings and spellings.

• neuropath* - neuropathy, neuropathic, neuropathies, neuropathological and neuropathogenic

• child* = child, childs, children, childrens, childhood

• Truncation symbols may vary by database; common symbols include: *, !, ?, or #

TRUNCATION



Wildcard- Similar to truncation, wildcards substitute a symbol for one letter of a word.

• Wom?n – woman OR women

• colo?r = color, colour

WILDCARD



1. 'hypersalivation'/exp

2. 'salivation'/exp

3. 'salivary gland'/exp

4. 'saliva'/exp

5. (drool* OR dribbl* OR Hypersalivation OR sialorrhea OR sialorrhoea OR ‘oral secretions’):ab,ti

6. (Saliva* Near/3 (excess* OR manage* OR volume OR reduction OR reduce)):ab,ti

7. (Salivary OR parotid OR submandibular):ab,ti

8. 1 OR 2 OR 3 OR 4 OR 5 OR 6 OR 7

SAMPLE STRATEGY



Document Your Search Strategy



• Replicability

• List databases searched

• Record how many records your search retrieved for each search

• Later, you'll be noting how many citations or records made it through each step of your process (PRISMA)

• Note the dates of the last search for each database AND the period searched

• List grey literature sources

• List individuals or organizations contacted

• List any journals and conference proceedings specifically handsearched for the review

DOCUMENT YOUR SEARCH STRATEGY



Managing search results



Managing the references you find and use in your review will take a significant amount of work

• Subscription –EndNote (desktop), Papers, and RefWorks

• Free – Mendeley, Zotero & EndNote (online). Some researchers use EXCEL.

REFERENCE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE



• Enable researchers to more easily organize and manage large volumes of references

• Facilitates the capture and organization of studies identified through searching

• Facilitates the elimination of duplicate records from multiple database searches

• Facilitates the transfer of references to Cochrane RevMan and other systematic review software

• Allows reviewers to share their references with other reviewers




It is better to record too many references than to have to return a few weeks or months hence and spend hours trying to relocate documents




Search Alerts

• Need to register with individual databases

• Run you search and save the strategy

• An alert can then be set up to provide automatic e-mail/RSS notification whenever new search results become available that match your strategy

• Alerts can be run daily/monthly/weekly

ALERTS

Thank You!

THE LIBRARY OF TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLINLEABHARLANN CHOLÁISTE NA TRÍONÓIDE, OLLSCOIL ÁTHA CLIATH

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