ArticleBMC medical research methodology2015
Novel citation-based search method for scientific literature: application to meta-analyses.
Article in BMC medical research methodology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 19 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Evidence-based practice educational intervention studies: a systematic review of what is taught and how it is measured.BMC medical education · 2018Pooled it
- A comparison of results of empirical studies of supplementary search techniques and recommendations in review methodology handbooks: a methodological review.Systematic reviews · 2017Pooled it
- Performance of the Leicester risk assessment and Leicester practice risk scores for assessing the risk of undiagnosed type 2 diabetes or prediabetes in diverse populations: protocol for a systematic review of published validations and updates.Diagnostic and prognostic research · 2026Review
- Automated citation searching in systematic review production: A simulation study.Research synthesis methods · 2025Article
- An exploration of available methods and tools to improve the efficiency of systematic review production: a scoping review.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Article
- A review of methods for the analysis of diagnostic tests performed in sequence.Diagnostic and prognostic research · 2024Review
- A Two-Decade Bibliometric Analysis of Laser in Ophthalmology: From Past to Present.Clinical ophthalmology (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2024Review
- Evaluating the adoption of handsearching, citation chasing, and screening tools in education research: a survey study.Frontiers in research metrics and analytics · 2024Article
- A 2-decade bibliometric analysis of epigenetics of cardiovascular disease: from past to present.Clinical epigenetics · 2023Review
- Health disparities in past influenza pandemics: A scoping review of the literature.SSM - population health · 2023Article
- 2009 CKD-EPI glomerular filtration rate estimation in Black individuals outside the United States: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Clinical kidney journal · 2023Article
- Archaeological evidence of resource utilisation of the great whales over the past two millennia: A systematic review protocol.PloS one · 2023Article
- Can social support be improved in people with a severe mental illness? A systematic review and meta-analysis.Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Semi-automated Tools for Systematic Searches.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Novel citation-based search method for scientific literature: a validation study.BMC medical research methodology · 2020Article
- Using citation tracking for systematic literature searching - study protocol for a scoping review of methodological studies and a Delphi study.F1000Research · 2020Article
- Article
- Additional support for RCR: A validated article-level measure of scientific influence.PLoS biology · 2017Article
- Erratum to: Novel citation-based search method for scientific literature: application to meta-analyses.BMC medical research methodology · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundFinding eligible studies for meta-analysis and systematic reviews relies on keyword-based searching as the gold standard, despite its inefficiency. Searching based on direct citations is not sufficiently comprehensive. We propose a novel strategy that ranks articles on their degree of co-citation with one or more "known" articles before reviewing their eligibility.
methodIn two independent studies, we aimed to reproduce the results of literature searches for sets of published meta-analyses (n = 10 and n = 42). For each meta-analysis, we extracted co-citations for the randomly selected 'known' articles from the Web of Science database, counted their frequencies and screened all articles with a score above a selection threshold. In the second study, we extended the method by retrieving direct citations for all selected articles.
resultsIn the first study, we retrieved 82% of the studies included in the meta-analyses while screening only 11% as many articles as were screened for the original publications. Articles that we missed were published in non-English languages, published before 1975, published very recently, or available only as conference abstracts. In the second study, we retrieved 79% of included studies while screening half the original number of articles.
conclusionsCitation searching appears to be an efficient and reasonably accurate method for finding articles similar to one or more articles of interest for meta-analysis and reviews.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.