ArticleBMC medical research methodology2021
Database selection and data gathering methods in systematic reviews of qualitative research regarding diabetes mellitus - an explorative study.
Article in BMC medical research methodology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Peripheral Neuropathy Instruments for Individuals with Cancer: A COSMIN-Based Systematic Review of Measurement Properties.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2024Pooled it
- Mental Health Nurses' Enforcement of Involuntary Care in Inpatient Settings: A Meta-Ethnography.International journal of mental health nursing · 2025Review
- A practical guide to evaluating sensitivity of literature search strings for systematic reviews using relative recall.Research synthesis methods · 2025Review
- Chemical composition and pharmacological aspects of Malaysian stingless bee propolis: An up‑to‑date systematic review.Biomedical reports · 2025Article
- Scientific Literature Database Coverage of Randomized Clinical Trials for Central Serous Chorioretinopathy.Journal of personalized medicine · 2023Article
- Perceptions and expectations of health professionals regarding hospital pharmacy services and the roles of hospital pharmacists: A qualitative systematic review and meta-synthesis.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2023Review
- Occupational Disease and Injury in Malaysia: A Thematic Review of Literature from 2016 to 2021.Journal of environmental and public health · 2023Review
- Database coverage and their use in systematic reviews regarding spinal manipulative therapy: an exploratory study.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2022Article
- Efficient searching for NICE public health guidelines: Would using fewer sources still find the evidence?Research synthesis methods · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSystematic reviews (SRs) are considered one of the most reliable types of studies in evidence-based medicine. SRs rely on a comprehensive and systematic data gathering, including the search of academic literature databases. This study aimed to investigate which combination of databases would result in the highest overall recall rate of references when conducting SRs of qualitative research regarding diabetes mellitus. Furthermore, we aimed to investigate the current use of databases and other sources for data collection.
methodsTwenty-six SRs (published between 2010 and 2020) of qualitative research regarding diabetes mellitus, located through PubMed, met the inclusion criteria. References of the SRs were systematically hand searched in the six academic literature databases CINAHL, MEDLINE/PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus and the academic search engine Google Scholar. Recall rates were calculated using the total number of included references retrieved by the database or database combination divided by the total number of included references, given in percentage.
resultsThe SRs searched five databases on average (range two to nine). MEDLINE/PubMed was the most commonly searched database (100% of SRs). In addition to academic databases, 18 of the 26 (69%) SRs hand searched the reference lists of included articles. This technique resulted in a median (IQR) of 2.5 (one to six) more references being included per SR than by database searches alone. 27 (5.4%) references were found only in one of six databases (when Google Scholar was excluded), with CINAHL retrieving the highest number of unique references (n = 15). The combinations of MEDLINE/PubMed and CINAHL (96.4%) and MEDLINE/PubMed, CINAHL, and Embase (98.8%) yielded the highest overall recall rates, with Google Scholar excluded.
conclusionsWe found that the combinations of MEDLINE/PubMed and CINAHL and MEDLINE/PubMed, CINAHL, and Embase yielded the highest overall recall rates of references included in SRs of qualitative research regarding diabetes mellitus. However, other combinations of databases yielded corresponding recall rates and are expected to perform comparably. Google Scholar can be a useful supplement to traditional scientific databases to ensure an optimal and comprehensive retrieval of relevant references.
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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.