Comparison of search strategies in systematic reviews of adverse effects to other systematic reviews

Ref ID 123
First Author S. Golder
Journal HEALTH INFORMATION & LIBRARIES JOURNAL
Year Of Publishing 2014
URL https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24754741/
Keywords • Harms
• Cochrane
• Searching
• Reproducibility
Problem(s) • Insufficient literature searches
• Reliance on randomised controlled trials for harms / safety data
• Methods not described to enable replication
• Search strategy not provided
Number of systematic reviews included 849
Summary of Findings From 849 systematic reviews dated from 1994 to 2011. A third of reviews (280/849, 33%) limited themselves to data from randomised controlled trials. Adverse effects search terms were used by 72% of reviews and despite recommendations only two reviews report using floating subheadings. 19% of all reviews only searched MEDLINE. Only 74/849 (9%) provided sufficient detail to allow the search to be reproduced.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? N/A
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? No