Systematic reviews of test accuracy should search a range of databases to identify primary studies

Ref ID 404
First Author P. Whiting
Journal JOURNAL OF CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY
Year Of Publishing 2008
URL https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18313560/
Keywords • Diagnostic
• Searching
Problem(s) • Insufficient literature searches
Article Type Empirical
Article Subtype Small analytical study
First Author Country United Kingdom
Aim To assess eight systematic reviews of test accuracy derived from seven research projects, for which the information service staff at the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York had carried out the searches, published between 2002-2008.
Level of Investigation Analytical
Summary of Findings No search identified all studies in any gold standard set. Over 20% of studies in the gold standard sets were not identified by searching MEDLINE. Six studies on LILACS were not on any other database. Eight gold standard studies were not included in any of the databases, and a further 22 were not identified by the electronic search strategies.
Number of systematic reviews included 8
Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed 8
Treatment impacted No
Treatment impacted description
Interpretation impacted Not Applicable
Interpretation impacted description