ArticleBMC medical research methodology2022
Development and validation of search filters to identify articles on deprescribing in Medline and Embase.
Article in BMC medical research methodology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 4 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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Comparative Safety of Medications for Severe Agitation: A Geriatric Emergency Department Guidelines 2.0 Systematic Review.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Pooled it
- Withdrawal of antihypertensive drugs in older people.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Identifying studies evaluating susceptibility factors for chemical health assessments: A case study focused on methylmercury developmental neurotoxicity.Environment international · 2025Article
- Deprescribing in Australian residential aged care facilities: A scoping review.Australasian journal on ageing · 2025Article
- How can policies impact the relational process of deprescription? A realist review protocol with an initial theory.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Searching for the social determinants of health: observations from evidence synthesis publications.Systematic reviews · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDeprescribing literature has been increasing rapidly. Our aim was to develop and validate search filters to identify articles on deprescribing in Medline via PubMed and in Embase via Embase.com .
methodsArticles published from 2011 to 2020 in a core set of eight journals (covering fields of interest for deprescribing, such as geriatrics, pharmacology and primary care) formed a reference set. Each article was screened independently in duplicate and classified as relevant or non-relevant to deprescribing. Relevant terms were identified by term frequency analysis in a 70% subset of the reference set. Selected title and abstract terms, MeSH terms and Emtree terms were combined to develop two highly sensitive filters for Medline via Pubmed and Embase via Embase.com . The filters were validated against the remaining 30% of the reference set. Sensitivity, specificity and precision were calculated with their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).
resultsA total of 23,741 articles were aggregated in the reference set, and 224 were classified as relevant to deprescribing. A total of 34 terms and 4 MeSH terms were identified to develop the Medline search filter. A total of 27 terms and 6 Emtree terms were identified to develop the Embase search filter. The sensitivity was 92% (95% CI: 83-97%) in Medline via Pubmed and 91% (95% CI: 82-96%) in Embase via Embase.com .
conclusionsThese are the first deprescribing search filters that have been developed objectively and validated. These filters can be used in search strategies for future deprescribing reviews. Further prospective studies are needed to assess their effectiveness and efficiency when used in systematic reviews.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.