Subsidies for construction of search strategy for systematic reviews in the MEDLINE database via PubMed: improvement methodology

• Grant number: 11/13988-9
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: November 01, 2011
• End date: October 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Collective Health - Epidemiology
• Principal Investigator: Regina Paolucci El Dib
• Grantee: Regina Paolucci El Dib
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FMB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

A systematic review is the basis for the practice of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). One of the most important features of the systematic review is the interest in improving methods for retrieving articles through search strategies to ensure that the result of searches in the sources is comprehensive and complete. The quality of search in electronic databases is essential to conduct a systematic review. To ensure the quality in information retrieval is necessary to plan and tailor each search strategy for each database to be queried. Although the databases offer several tools for electronic searches, finding information can be complex, so the domain of knowledge about the databases and multiple interfaces on which bases can be made available is important to formulate the best possible strategy that allow optimal recovery results. With the introduction and spread of MBE, there were studies evaluating the coverage, scope and limitations of Medline. Thus, considering the importance of the search strategy in the context of MBE and the increased interest in conducting systematic reviews, we propose a more effective way to build these search strategies. Therefore, the general objective of the work will be to identify subsidies for the construction of the search strategy in Medline database via PubMed assessing the applicability of the parentheses, truncation and the use of search history to combine sets of results. The research project will be conducted at the Technical Library and Documentation Botucatu Campus and Unit Systematic Reviews of FMB / Unesp. 540 will be assessed search strategies coming from systematic reviews. (AU)