A study of search strategy availability statements and sharing practices for systematic reviews: Ask and you might receive

Ref ID 935
First Author C. J. Neilson
Journal RESEARCH SYNTHESIS METHODS
Year Of Publishing 2023
URL https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jrsm.1696
Keywords Open data
Author
Transparency
General medical
Searching
Non-Cochrane reviews
Problem(s) Methods not described to enable replication
Insufficient literature searches
Number of systematic reviews included 155
Summary of Findings From 155 included systematic reviews that included a search availability statement indexed across MEDLINE with Full Text (EBSCOhost), Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost), Lens.org, and Google Scholar from 2018 to June 24th, 2022. Of 155 data sharing statements the authors received responses from less than half of the authors contacted (n = 72, 46.5%). Of the 72 authors who responded, only 56 (36.0% of the overall sample, 78% of responses received) eventually sent some type of search strategy. Five authors sent the same search strategy that was published with the review manuscript, and 3 authors sent unreplicable searches. Ten (6.5% of the overall sample, 17.9% of authors that sent search strategies) sent only 1 replicable search strategy, and the remaining 38 (24.5% of the overall sample, 67.9% of authors that sent search strategies) sent replicable search strategies for more than one database.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? No