Review Guidance
Search Strategy
Developing the search strategy involves:
- Identifying databases and other sources to search
- Identifying keywords and search terms
- Constructing queries using keywords and terms
- Applying any limits to the results (e.g. specific publication years)
An approach we have used when constructing complex database queries is generating a table to track individual queries and results (Note: you may have multiple query tables if using multiple sources):
Search Number | Query | # of Results |
---|---|---|
S1 | ("A*") OR ("B*") OR (MH "C") OR (MH "D") OR (MH "E") OR (MH "F+") | 1000 |
S2 | (MH "G") OR (MH "H+") OR (MH "I") OR ("J") OR ("K") OR ("L") | 900 |
S3 | S1 AND S2 | 200 |
A-L represent general terms
MH represents a MeSH term. Some databases use a defined set of terms.
Once the search has been conducted, the results need to be compiled into a format that all reviewers can use to conduct the review. For our reviews, we create a basic worksheet to capture details of each result returned. This worksheet can then be used for other parts of the review by adding or removing columns as needed.
Template:
Result ID | Source | Date Retrieved | Authors | Title | Periodical |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Medline | Aug. 12/13 | XXX | XXX | XXX |
2 | |||||
3 |
Pub Year | Vol | Issue | Pages | Abstract | Link |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 2 | 12 | 235-239 | XXX | www... |
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Search Strategy
Paper Selection
Quality Assessment
Data Extraction and Synthesis
News and events
- Publications, presentations, and projects sections of website updated
- Paper published in International Journal of Health Information Management Research (2014)
- Paper published in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making (2014)
- Presented at Queen’s Health Policy Change Conference Series (May 15-16, 2014)
- Presented at CAHSPR 2014 Conference (May 12-14, 2014)
- Paper published in Healthcare Quarterly (2014)
- Paper published in Journal of American Medical Informatics Association (2014)