Background: Interrupted time series (ITS) studies contribute importantly to systematic reviews of population-level interventions. We aimed to develop and validate search filters to retrieve ITS studies in MEDLINE and PubMed. Methods: A total of 1017 known ITS studies (published 2013-2017) were analysed using text mining to generate candidate…

While geographic search filters exist, few of them are validated and there are currently none that focus on Germany. We aimed to develop and validate a highly sensitive geographic search filter for MEDLINE (PubMed) that identifies studies about Germany. First, using the relative recall method, we created a gold standard set of studies about…

The Systematic Review Toolbox aims provide a web-based catalogue of tools that support various tasks within the systematic review and wider evidence synthesis process. Identifying publications surrounding specific systematic review tools is currently challenging, leading to a high screening burden for few eligible records. We aimed to develop a…

A retrospective analysis published by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) in 2018 concluded that no filter for non-randomized studies (NRS) achieved sufficient sensitivity ([greater than or equal to] 92%), a precondition for comprehensive information retrieval. New NRS filters are therefore required, taking into…

We researchers have taken searching for information for granted for far too long. The COVID-19 pandemic shows us the boundaries of academic searching capabilities, both in terms of our know-how and of the systems we have. With hundreds of studies published daily on COVID-19, for example, we struggle to find, stay up-to-date, and synthesize…

Objective: Search strategies are essential for the adequate retrieval of studies in a systematic review (SR). Our objective was to identify problems in the design and reporting of search strategies in a sample of new Cochrane SRs first published in The Cochrane Library in 2015. Study design and setting: We took a random sample of 70 new Cochrane…

The literature searches that are used to identify studies for inclusion in a systematic review should be comprehensively reported. This ensures that the literature searches are transparent and reproducible, which is important for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a systematic review and re-running the literature searches when conducting an…

Clinical trial data are essential for assessments of the effectiveness of health care interventions. Information about ongoing or completed, but not yet formally published, trials has been more difficult to identify until the development of clinical trials registers and portals. This paper summarises research evidence on identifying sources of…

The wide variety of readily available electronic media grants anyone the freedom to retrieve published references from almost any area of research around the world. Despite this privilege, keeping up with primary research evidence is almost impossible because of the increase in professional publishing across disciplines. Systematic reviews are a…

Background: The scoping review has become an increasingly popular approach for synthesizing research evidence. It is a relatively new approach for which a universal study definition or definitive procedure has not been established. The purpose of this scoping review was to provide an overview of scoping reviews in the literature. Methods: A…