| Ref ID | 257 |
| First Author | K. A. Bui |
| Journal | EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY |
| Year Of Publishing | 2018 |
| URL | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/ene.13758?download=true |
| Keywords |
• Neurology • Searching |
| Problem(s) |
• Insufficient literature searches |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Cross-sectional survey/Methodological systematic review |
| First Author Country | Canada |
| Checklists |
• AMSTAR 1 • PRESS |
| Aim | To assess the quality of the literature search strategies (PRESS) used in recent systematic reviews of neurological conditions published in 2015-2016. |
| Level of Investigation | Descriptive |
| Summary of Findings | 60% of key quality criteria for literature search strategies (PRESS) used in recent systematic reviews of neurological conditions published in 2015-2016 were not met. Over 30% of search strategies relied on a single keyword to identify the neurological condition. The quality of the overall and condition-specific search strategies was not correlated to the impact factor of the publishing journal. The authors highlight that single-term hedges are insensitive for most neurological conditions tested, with the exceptions of migraine and MS. Insensitive search strategies will result in many false negatives during the course of a literature search and the failure to identify potentially important data. |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 182 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 972 |
| Treatment impacted | No |
| Treatment impacted description | |
| Interpretation impacted | Not Applicable |
| Interpretation impacted description |