Economic Sources for Systematic Reviews of Health Policy

Greyson, Devon and Morgan, Steve Economic Sources for Systematic Reviews of Health Policy., 2007 . In Canadian Health Libraries Association, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada), 28 May - 1 June 2007. (Unpublished) [Conference poster]

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English abstract

Purpose: To explore and assess the utility of consulting non-biomedical sources in searches for the systematic review in health care policy. Setting: An academic health policy research centre, specifically the research group focusing on pharmaceutical policy. Methods: Case studies of two literature searches for systematic reviews of health policy interventions. All citations retrieved for the reviews were tagged with their source(s) of origin (typically database name). Absolute number and percentage of relevant citations per database were tracked after the initial “weed,” after the full-text weed, and after the reviewers had assessed full-text articles for review inclusion criteria. Citation sources were analyzed for number of results used in the review, number of unique results used in the review (found in only one source), and “missed” results (turned up in another database search and “should” have been duplicated in that database as well). Results: Initial results indicate that Medline and EMBASE, while highest in number of citations, had very few unique citations. Non-biomedical sources, such as economic and business databases, on the other hand, garnered unique, relevant results not indexed in biomedical databases. Citation tracing “snowballing” garnered more unique results than any single biomedical database. Discussion: Investigators seeking to complete a systematic review of health policy should consider the inclusion of non-biomedical databases, particularly economic databases, in their search strategies. Citation tracing is reaffirmed as a critical element of the systematic review search process.

Item type:	Conference poster
Keywords:	systematic review, information retrieval, search strategy, economic sources, health, health policy
Subjects:	H. Information sources, supports, channels. > HL. Databases and database Networking. I. Information treatment for information services > IF. Information transfer: protocols, formats, techniques. L. Information technology and library technology > LZ. None of these, but in this section.
Depositing user:	Devon Greyson
Date deposited:	01 Jul 2007
Last modified:	02 Oct 2014 12:08
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/10760/9965

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