The methodological quality of systematic reviews indexed in the MEDLINE database. A multivariate approach
| Pages | 146-158 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-01-2017-0002 |
| Date | 05 February 2018 |
| Published date | 05 February 2018 |
| Author | Helena Martín-Rodero,Javier Sanz-Valero,Purificación Galindo-Villardón |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
The methodological quality of
systematic reviews indexed in the
MEDLINE database
A multivariate approach
Helena Martín-Rodero
Medical School Library, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
Javier Sanz-Valero
Department of Public Health and History of Science,
Miguel Hernández University, Alicante, Spain, and
Purificaci
on Galindo-Villard
on
Department of Statistics, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the methodology quality of the literature
search protocolsof systematic reviews and to assess the relevance of the search filter thatapplies PubMed for
retrievingthis type of publication of the MEDLINE database.
Design/methodology/approach –For the selection of the document type, a literature search about
nutritional and metabolic diseases was carried out in MEDLINE and the PubMed filter was used for
retrieving “Systematic Reviews”, selecting “Nutritional and Metabolic Diseases”from the Medical Subject
Headings (MeSH)database as Major Topic to determine the area of knowledge. Data analysis was carried out
using “External Logistic Biplot”, a novel multivariate statistical technique in the field of medical
documentation.
Findings –The results highlight the large variability of the methodology used in the literature search
protocols of the systematic reviewsanalysed and confirm the low precision of the filter used by PubMed for
the recoveryof systematicreviews.
Originality/value –The Logistic Biplot used in this research allows an optimal categorization of the
different documentary typologies and classifies the documents by their methodological quality,
demonstratingits usefulness for the future developmentof the bibliometric analysis.
Keywords Information retrieval, Systematic reviews, Literature search protocols, Logistic biplots,
MEDLINE/PubMed, Multivariate statistical techniques
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The past few years have witnesseda growing number of studies of systematic reviews and
meta-analyses in the medical literature related to the movement known as evidence-based
medicine (EBM). The use of these studies is a methodological tool, introduced in the late
1980s and early 1990s of the past century, and it provides for decision-making based on the
best available scientificevidence (Davila-Seijo et al.,2013).
The systematic review is a scientific investigation in itself which uses original research
publications (Cooket al.,1997;Ferreira González et al., 2011). Systematic reviewpublications
respond to a researchquestion clearly formulated through a systematicand explicit process,
EL
36,1
146
Received3 January 2017
Revised25 April 2017
Accepted4 June 2017
TheElectronic Library
Vol.36 No. 1, 2018
pp. 146-158
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-01-2017-0002
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