Context
The effective search for data is primordial for the development of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. In the setting of the French Federation of Comprehensive Cancer Centres’ guidelines programme (SOR) a series of generic search strategies have been elaborated to facilitate this aspect of guideline development. Clinical problems can be formulated using the PICO model (Patient or Pathology, Intervention, Compared intervention and Outcome) for facilitating the elaboration of a search strategy.
Objective
To optimise literature searching in the guidelines development process by providing search strategy modules for MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Database. The main aims are to provide a more systematic and homogenous literature searching step within the guidelines programme, and to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort between working groups.
Methods
Standardised search strategies were elaborated and tested for the different biomedical databases. These had a modular structure, based on the PICO model, which enabled the different modules to be combined to define a specific search strategy. As outcomes are rarely indexed as keywords in biomedical databases, this module was not taken into account. However, a module corresponding to the methodological aspects was elaborated.
Results
Modules defining ‘patient or pathology’ (disease site + disease stage), ‘intervention’ (management step(s) + intervention(s) evaluated) and ‘methodology’ (study design relevant to the question + other methodological aspects) have been elaborated and tested. These modules are stored in a database which can be accessed when a guidelines working group needs to run a literature search.
These tools are progressively created according to the litterature search needs. When a module is improved or a new module is elaborated, the database is updated.
Discussion and Conclusions
The development of evidence-based guidelines is an ideal setting for this modular approach to literature searching. The storage of the modules in a central database facilates access by the guidelines working groups for elaborating specific search strategies, building on previous work. This approach avoids unnecessary duplication of effort and provides a useful tool for supporting the work of guidelines working groups and leads to more systematic, homogeneous search strategies for the guidelines produced within our guideline programme.
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