Evidence-based Medical Systems Review Source Documents And Search Strategy Analysis

Background: Systematic Reviews (SRs), as a new type of literature, are spread, communicated, utilized and updated in medical practice while the Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) is emerging. Because of the particularity of the SR's producing process and a little of systematic reviewers, the quantities of current SRs are less and can not meet the need of EBM practitioners. On the other hand, although SRs have distributed in EBM databases and bibliographic databases, the medical practitioners don't utilize them sufficiently and this will hold back the development of EBM practices. Therefore, the study on how to increase the quantities of the SRs at the same time to improve its quality and the search strategies for the SRs have become more and more important in the development of EBM.Objective: The materials and the search strategies for the SRs are analyzed in this paper. The results of this study will provide many useful references to the systematic reviewers and the users of the SRs.Methods: Firstly, calculated and analyzed the search methods and the information resources of material for SRs in Cochrane Library using network survey; Secondly, converted the search strategies for SRs which are established by the UK York University in OVID database to *PubMed/Medline database, and do a experimental search to find differences between the four search strategies.Results: 1. SR Abstracts of Cochrane Library increased 282 records in 2002; 2. Cochrane systematic reviewers used many search methods, such as searching the electronic information resources by computer (100%), browsing bibliographies and the reference lists of identified studies and review articles (56.89%), contacting author, investigator, trialist, experts and so on (43.73%), contacting manufacturer, industry and relevant organization (22.10%), hand-searching conference proceedings(17.85%), hand-searching relevant journals(16.89%), hand-searching books, textbooks and relevant publications(2.76%), hand-searching printed retrieval books(1.57%), browsing the grey literature(1.06%). The percent of hand-searching is25.73% in the total searching approaches; 3. Cochrane systematic reviewer utilized 286 information resources in 2002; 4. Cochrane Collaborative Review Groups are cross-referenced; 5. There are significant differences between the four search strategies to SRs.Conclusion: 1. Encourage all of the medical practitioners to participate actively in the process of producing SRs to increase the quantity of SRs; 2. To ensure the authenticity and dependability of the material of SRs and improve the quality of the SRs, we should utilize the high-quality information resources widely and completely; 3. Using systematic, no-biased search methods can ensure the sensitivity of the search results; 4. Pay attention to utilize relevant databases; 5. Select appropriate search strategies to search SRs according to the searching purpose.According to the results of this study, we established a model of integrated search system about EBM information resources. It will provide conveniences to get EBM information for the systematic reviewers and the users of the SRs.