Improving search efficiency for systematic reviews of diagnostic test accuracy: an exploratory study to assess the viability of limiting to MEDLINE EMBASE and reference checking

摘要

BackgroundIncreasing numbers of systematic reviews evaluating the diagnostic test accuracy of technologies are being published. Currently, review teams tend to apply conventional systematic review standards to identify relevant studies for inclusion, for example sensitive searches of multiple bibliographic databases. There has been little evaluation of the efficiency of searching only one or two such databases for this type of review. The aim of this study was to assess the viability of an approach that restricted searches to MEDLINE, EMBASE and the reference lists of included studies.