The development of search filters for adverse effects of surgical interventions in medline and Embase

Abstract

BackgroundSearch filter development for adverse effects has tended to focus on retrieving studies of drug interventions. However, a different approach is required for surgical interventions.ObjectiveTo develop and validate search filters for medline and Embase for the adverse effects of surgical interventions.MethodsSystematic reviews of surgical interventions where the primary focus was to evaluate adverse effect(s) were sought. The included studies within these reviews were divided randomly into a development set, evaluation set and validation set. Using word frequency analysis we constructed a sensitivity maximising search strategy and this was tested in the evaluation and validation set.ResultsThree hundred and fifty eight papers were included from 19 surgical intervention reviews. Three hundred and fifty two papers were available on medline and 348 were available on Embase. Generic adverse effects search strategies in medline and Embase could achieve approximately 90% relative recall. Recall could be further improved with the addition of specific adverse effects terms to the search strategies.ConclusionWe have derived and validated a novel search filter that has reasonable performance for identifying adverse effects of surgical interventions in medline and Embase. However, we appreciate the limitations of our methods, and recommend further research on larger sample sizes and prospective systematic reviews.

Improving the translation of search strategies using the Polyglot Search Translator: a randomized controlled trial

“…To determine if complexity of the search string affected the results, search strings were ranked in order of complexity from least (1) to most (20) complex by a consensus process between two of the authors (Clark and Honeyman). The ranking was also shared with participants and their feedback taken into consideration (supplemental Appendix E).…”

Overview: comprehensive and carefully constructed strategies are required when conducting searches for adverse effects data

“…In MED-LINE, the top performing search term in relation to sensitivity for drug interventions is the use of ''adverse effects (ae)'' as a floating subheading [25], for surgery, it is the search term ''complication*'' (where * represents a wildcard) in the title and abstract [27,28], and for medical devices, it is ''complicat*'' in the title and abstract [29]. In EMBASE, the search term that the achieves highest sensitivity for drug interventions is the floating subheading ''adverse drug reaction (ae)'', for surgery it is ''complication*' in the title and abstract [27,28], and for medical devices, it is the floating subheading ''complication (co)'' [29]. Note that the generalizability of these sensitivity results is unknown although they provide useful indications to review teams.…”

“…The most useful search method for retrieving adverse effects results is to use subheadings (sometimes referred to as qualifiers) [4,27,30]. Although rarely recommended in reviews of treatment benefit, in reviews incorporating adverse effects, they are particularly useful in augmenting sensitivity and precision of searches [4,13,17,18,26].…”

“…For reviews of drug interventions, the published search filter that displays the best sensitivity is by Golder et al [25]. Research has also been undertaken to develop search filters for medical device adverse effects and surgical complications in MED-LINE and EMBASE [27,28]. These filters have demonstrated the different terminology and indexing used for the adverse effects of different types of interventions (Box 1).…”

“…These filters have demonstrated the different terminology and indexing used for the adverse effects of different types of interventions (Box 1). For example, the term ''complications'' is more frequently used with surgical procedures and terms related to ''failure'' and ''recall'' with medical devices (Box 1) [27,28]. The sensitivity achieved with search filters varies.…”