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Presenter: Alison BethelAbstract: Reflecting on search methods at the end of, or even during, an evidence synthesis project (systematic review, rapid review, evidence and gap map etc) is a good idea because it allows us to feed into update searches and future reviews...

Presenter: Alison Bethel

Abstract: Reflecting on search methods at the end of, or even during, an evidence synthesis project (systematic review, rapid review, evidence and gap map etc) is a good idea because it allows us to feed into update searches and future reviews. It can help make our search methods and decisions more evidence informed. We have created a search summary table and a search narrative template to help with this, along with a method of evaluating our searches to find out, for example: which searches in which databases retrieved the included articles for each specific project, which searches in which databases retrieved unique articles, whether specific types of study were retrieved by searching specific databases, which supplementary search methods retrieved additional relevant studies/articles. We publish the search summary table with the review when possible. In this talk I will share my experience with completing search summary tables and search evaluations and provide examples of when I’ve used them within an evidence synthesis project.

About Alison: Alison is a Senior Research Fellow, Information Science, and currently works across three NIHR funded evidence synthesis groups at the University of Exeter Medical School: PenARC’s Evidence Synthesis Team, the HSDR Evidence Synthesis Centre and ISCA Evidence where she designs and runs systematic literature searches for all types of evidence synthesis projects. Alison is a co-convener for the Campbell Collaboration and is one of the UK’s Council Representatives for EAHIL.

Alison also teaches within the UEMS and undertakes information retrieval research projects with her colleague Morwenna Rogers.