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Searching Embase and MEDLINE by using only major descriptors or title and abstract fields: a prospective exploratory
Wichor M Bramer1, Dean Giustini2, Jos Kleijnen3,4
1Medical Library, Erasmus MC, University Medical Centre Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CS, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. w.bramer@erasmusmc.nl.
Systematic Reviews
|November 22, 2018
Summary
Limiting systematic review searches to major thesaurus terms or title/abstract fields in Embase and MEDLINE can significantly reduce search results. However, this precision comes at the cost of potentially missing relevant references, even when using other databases.
Area of Science:
- Information Science
- Medical Informatics
- Bibliometrics
Background:
- Systematic reviews (SRs) require sifting through numerous citations from database searches.
- Effective bibliographic searches combine thesaurus terms with keywords from titles and abstracts.
- Embase records offer more thesaurus terms than MEDLINE.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the impact of search strategies on systematic review recall.
- To assess how limiting searches to major thesaurus terms or title/abstract fields affects citation retrieval in Embase and MEDLINE.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of previously completed SRs to test precision-focused search techniques.
- Searches were limited to major thesaurus terms or title/abstract fields in Embase.com and/or MEDLINE (Ovid).
- Total search results and retrieval of included references were examined for focused approaches.
Main Results:
- Limiting Embase searches to major terms reduced overall yield by 8%, with 9% of reviews losing >5% of relevant references.
- Combining Embase and MEDLINE major term limits lowered results by 13%, causing >5% loss in 15% of reviews.
- Title/abstract field limitations in Embase and MEDLINE led to >5% loss of relevant references in 22% and 33% of reviews, respectively.
Conclusions:
- Two tested search options significantly reduced overall search yield.
- These focused search strategies increased the risk of losing relevant references.
- Relevant references may still be captured in other databases like Web of Science.
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