Identifying Clinical Trials in the Medical Literature with Electronic Databases

Suarez‐Almazor, María E.; Belseck, Elaine; Homik, Joanne; Dorgan, Marlene; Ramos-Remus, César

doi:10.1016/s0197-2456(00)00067-2

Cited by 164 publications

(107 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…16,55 The references analysis of the selected articles and manual review unveiled three additional articles, which seems to be quite satisfactory in regards to the 22 articles retained. Finally, we did not follow the Cochrane recommendations for assessing the level of evidence, because the Cochrane scoring system always gives a low level of evidence to observational studies regardless of their quality.…”

Section: Study Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Pressure ulcer risk factors in persons with SCI: part I: acute and rehabilitation stages

Gélis

Dupeyron

Legros³

et al. 2008

Spinal Cord

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Background: Pressure ulcers (PUs) are a common complication following a spinal-cord injury (SCI). Good prevention requires identifying the individuals at risk for developing PUs. Risk assessment scales used nowadays were designed on pathophysiological concepts and are not SCI-specific. Recently, an epidemiological approach to PU risk factors has been proposed to design an SCI-specific assessment tool. The first results seem quite disappointing, probably becuase of the level of evidence of the risk factors used. Objective: To determine PU risk factors correlated to the patients with SCI, medical care management during the acute as well as in the rehabilitation and chronic stages. This first part focuses on identifying the risk factors during the acute and rehabilitation stages. Materials and methods: Systematic review of the literature. Results: Six studies met our inclusion criteria. The risk factors during the acute stage of an SCI are essentially linked to care management and treatment modalities. There is insufficient evidence to make a recommendation on medical risk factors, except for low blood pressure on admission to the Emergency Room, with a moderate level of evidence. Regarding the rehabilitation stage, no study was deemed relevant. Discussion and conclusions: Additional observational studies are needed, for both the acute and rehabilitation stages, to improve this level of evidence. However, this systematic review unveiled the need for a carefully assessed t care management and the related practices, especially during the acute stage of an SCI.

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Section: Study Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Pressure ulcer risk factors in persons with SCI: part I: acute and rehabilitation stages

Gélis

Dupeyron

Legros³

et al. 2008

Spinal Cord

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“…However, it is not sufficient to limit the search only to PubMed, as other databases may contain relevant studies not covered by PubMed [12]. Some of the important electronic databases for clinical studies are the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EMBASE and SCOPUS.…”

Section: Developing a Search Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Steps in the undertaking of a systematic review in orthopaedic surgery

Sambunjak

Franić

2011

International Orthopaedics (SICOT)

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In the last decades of the twentieth century it became obvious that modern medical care is replete with data and information, but in need of reliable evidence. This has led to an increased effort to systematically synthesise medical research and make it more useful for practitioners. Systematic reviews use an approach to research synthesis that minimises the risk of misinterpreting a body of evidence due to incomprehensive search or subjective opinion. Carrying out a systematic review is a rigorous procedure which corresponds to standard methodological steps in primary research studies. It involves posing a well-defined question, developing a robust search strategy, screening for relevant primary studies, critical appraisal of included studies, data extraction and processing, analysis and interpretation of results. In some, but not all systematic reviews it is appropriate to conduct a meta-analysis, which is a statistical procedure that integrates the results of several independent studies. Results of meta-analysis are graphically presented in forest plots, with pooled point estimate and its confidence interval represented as a rhombus, usually called a "diamond". Methodological quality of systematic reviews should not be judged by the quality of primary studies included, but by a distinct set of criteria specified in assessment tools such as AMSTAR. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should be reported according to the PRISMA checklist. A major contribution to the development of methodological standards has been given by The Cochrane Collaboration, whose Handbook of Systematic Reviews of Interventions is the primary reference for all authors and referees of systematic reviews in health care.

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“…Drug research is an area of science where chemistry, biology, and medicine intersect and some authors have pointed out that MEDLINE/ PubMed alone is not always sufficient to retrieve biomedical literature (Suarez-Almazor et al 2000). Interdisciplinary databases such as Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) are becoming more and more attractive to students and researchers for searching the drug literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selecting a Database for Drug Literature Retrieval: A Comparison of MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science

Baykoucheva

2010

Science & Technology Libraries

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Taylor & Francis holds the copyright of this article for all situations other than single use copies made for scholarly purposes.Three widely used databases—MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science—were compared for their relative ability to retrieve the largest number of articles within the drug literature, using three search terms: two for specific drugs (atorvastatin and olanzapine) and one for a major class of drugs (statins). These drugs and the class of drugs were chosen for their longevity and continued high clinical and scientific interest, as indicated by the many articles concerning them published in scholarly and professional journals over the last two decades. Significant differences were observed in the journal coverage and the number of documents each database retrieved, with Scopus significantly outperforming the other two databases in these respects. Based on the results from this limited but by no means atypical study of comparative strengths and degree of coverage, the best option for retrieving the largest numbers of articles on a particular drug in the literature would be to use both Scopus and Web of Science, as these two databases complement each other with respect to the journal coverage. MEDLINE retrieved much smaller numbers of documents in all searches and should be used only when the other two databases are not available

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Identifying Clinical Trials in the Medical Literature with Electronic Databases

Cited by 164 publications

References 17 publications

Pressure ulcer risk factors in persons with SCI: part I: acute and rehabilitation stages

Pressure ulcer risk factors in persons with SCI: part I: acute and rehabilitation stages

Steps in the undertaking of a systematic review in orthopaedic surgery

Selecting a Database for Drug Literature Retrieval: A Comparison of MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science

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