{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]],"date-time":"2026-05-04T00:25:40Z","timestamp":1777854340651,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":17,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[1998,6,1]],"date-time":"1998-06-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":896659200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Journal of Information Science"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[1998,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Background: systematic reviews are of increasing importance to health care professionals seeking to provide evidence-based health care, because they provide systematically prepared summaries of the current state of research knowledge on the effectiveness of health care interventions. To be able to make use of them, both researchers preparing systematic reviews and health care professionals need to be able to identify systematic reviews easily. In the past, systematic reviews have been difficult to identify easily among the mass of literature labelled \u2018reviews\u2019. Search strategies have been published which were intended to provide easier access to systematic reviews and meta-analyses. These strategies, mostly devised for the MEDLINE database, have been constructed using the authors\u2019 knowledge of the subject area, the databases and past experience.<\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>Objective: the objective of this study was to design search strategies based on a more objective approach to strategy construction.<\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>Methods: word frequencies from the titles, abstracts and subject keywords of a collection of systematic reviews of the effective health care interventions were analysed to derive a highly sensitive search strategy.<\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>Results: the proposed strategy offers 98% sensitivity in retrieving systematic reviews, while retaining a low but acceptable level of precision (20%). Other strategies with other levels of sensitivity and precision are also presented.<\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>Discussion: this study shows that a frequency analysis approach can be used to generate highly sensitive strategies which retain adequate levels of precision when retrieving systematic reviews.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/016555159802400301","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2004,12,17]],"date-time":"2004-12-17T20:36:35Z","timestamp":1103315795000},"page":"137-154","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":70,"title":["Identifying systematic reviews in MEDLINE: developing an objective approach                 to search strategy design"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"24","author":[{"given":"Janette","family":"Boynton","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Leeds, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Julie","family":"Glanville","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of York, UK,"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"David","family":"McDaid","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"London School of Economics, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Carol","family":"Lefebvre","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"UK Cochrane Centre, Oxford, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[1998,6,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"atypb1","volume-title":"The Cochrane Library","year":"1996"},{"key":"atypb2","volume-title":"Undertaking Systematic Reviews of Research on Effectiveness: CRD Guidelines for Those Carrying Out or Commissioning Reviews","author":"NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination","year":"1996"},{"key":"atypb3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1136\/bmj.309.6955.648"},{"key":"atypb4","volume-title":"Writing Abstracts for the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE): Summary of the Abstractors Manual","author":"NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination","year":"1997"},{"key":"atypb5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3102\/0013189X005010003"},{"key":"atypb6","volume-title":"Systematic Reviews","author":"I. Chalmers","year":"1995"},{"key":"atypb7","unstructured":"[7] The Knight Ridder Dialog bluesheet for MEDLINE is available at:                 http:\/\/www.krinfo.com\/dialog\/databases\/netscape1.1\/bl0154.html%23PU                 Knight Ridder has been taken over by MAID and the name of the service and the                 uniform resource locator (URL) may change."},{"key":"atypb8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7326\/0003-4819-113-1-69"},{"key":"atypb9","volume-title":"Medical Subject Headings. Annotated Alphabetic List 1997","author":"National Library of Medicine","year":"1996"},{"key":"atypb10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0197-2456(90)90032-W"},{"key":"atypb11","volume-title":"Fourth International Cochrane Colloquium","author":"F.M. Wolf"},{"key":"atypb12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7326\/0003-4819-126-7-199704010-00006"},{"key":"atypb13","volume-title":"SCI Journal Citation Reports: A Bibliometric Analysis of Science Journals in the ISI Database","author":"Institute for Scientific Information","year":"1996"},{"key":"atypb14","unstructured":"[14]                      C. Goodman                 , Literature Searching and Evidence Interpretation for Assessing Health                     Care Practices (                     Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care, Stockholm                 , 1993), p. 27."},{"key":"atypb15","volume-title":"Blackwell Idealist","year":"1994"},{"key":"atypb16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(97)02419-7"},{"key":"atypb17","unstructured":"[17] D. Moher, personal communication (1997). Dr Moher is based at the                 Clinical Epidemiology Unit of the Loeb Medical Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada,                 and is working on QUORUM (quality of reporting of meta-analysis)."}],"container-title":["Journal of Information Science"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/016555159802400301","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/016555159802400301","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T23:05:41Z","timestamp":1777503941000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/016555159802400301"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[1998,6]]},"references-count":17,"journal-issue":{"issue":"3","published-print":{"date-parts":[[1998,6]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1177\/016555159802400301"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/016555159802400301","relation":{},"ISSN":["0165-5515","1741-6485"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0165-5515","type":"print"},{"value":"1741-6485","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[1998,6]]}}}