Common Barriers to Replicability and Retrieval in Systematic Review Search Strategies

Abstract

Objective: To identify the most common elements of systematic review search strategies that affect the replicability of the search and the comprehensiveness of the retrieval.

Methods: Participants from three cohorts of a systematic review-focused workshop were asked to draft a replicable search strategy based on a brief scenario and a research question from a published systematic review. Participants were provided with three studies that were included in the published systematic review, but not the original systematic review. The researchers in the scenario asked for three commonly-requested limits: date range, inclusion of specific outcome, and publication type. Participants were free to choose to apply these limits or none. Submitted strategies were evaluated by two blinded reviewers for replicability, use of search limits, retrieval of the three provided studies, and retrieval of all studies included in the published systematic review. This study received exemption status from the Institutional Review Board.