Can electronic search engines optimize screening of search results in systematic reviews: an empirical study

摘要

BackgroundMost electronic search efforts directed at identifying primary studies for inclusion in systematic reviews rely on the optimal Boolean search features of search interfaces such as DIALOG^® and Ovid™. Our objective is to test the ability of an Ultraseek^® search engine to rank MEDLINE^® records of the included studies of Cochrane reviews within the top half of all the records retrieved by the Boolean MEDLINE search used by the reviewers.