Authors' objectives:

Our objective was to develop search filters to identify economic evaluations in the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases that would maximize sensitivity and achieve levels of precision to meet the needs of health technology assessment researchers. This project was also designed to obtain data on the relative performance of new and published search filters.

Authors' recommendations: This research shows that searchers have several sensitive filters to use to identify economic evaluations in MEDLINE: NHS QIS (full and brief), NHS EED, and Royle and Waugh.Searchers may select filters based on highest precision (NHS EED) or conciseness (Royle and Waugh). Increased precision can be achieved by choosing filters with lower sensitivity. All the filters for EMBASE should be used without exclusion search lines that remove specific publication types and animal studies.For searchers conducting scoping studies or rapid reviews, this research identified filters that offer higher levels of precision: the new MEDLINE G filter (more than 0.25 precision) and the new EMBASE H filter (more than 0.26 precision).Searchers now have new comparative information on the performance of a range of filters, which can assist during the planning of the workload for technology assessments.

Project Status: Completed

URL for project: http://www.cadth.ca/media/pdf/H0490_Search_Filters_for_Economic_Evaluations_mg_e.pdf

Year Published: 2009

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: Canada

Organisation Name: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health

Contact Address: 600-865 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8 Canada. Tel: +1 613 226 2553; Fax: +1 613 226 5392;

Contact Name: requests@cadth.ca

Contact Email: requests@cadth.ca

Copyright: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health