Sensitive Search Filter Research Articles

Development and validation of a geographic search filter for MEDLINE (PubMed) to identify studies about Germany.

While geographic search filters exist, few of them are validated and there are currently none that focus on Germany. We aimed to develop and validate a highly sensitive geographic search filter for MEDLINE (PubMed) that identifies studies about Germany. First, using the relative recall method, we created a gold standard set of studies about Germany, dividing it into 'development' and 'testing' sets. Next, candidate search terms were identified using (i) term frequency analyses in the 'development set' and a random set of MEDLINE records; and (ii) a list of German geographic locations, compiled by our team. Then, we iteratively created the filter, evaluating it against the 'development' and 'testing' sets. To validate the filter, we conducted a number of case studies (CSs) and a simulation study. For this validation we used systematic reviews (SRs) that had included studies about Germany but did not restrict their search strategy geographically. When applying the filter to the original search strategies of the 17 SRs eligible for CSs, the median precision was 2.64% (interquartile range [IQR]: 1.34%-6.88%) versus 0.16% (IQR: 0.10%-0.49%) without the filter. The median number-needed-to-read (NNR) decreased from 625 (IQR: 211-1042) to 38 (IQR: 15-76). The filter achieved 100% sensitivity in 13 CSs, 85.71% in 2 CSs and 87.50% and 80% in the remaining 2 CSs. In a simulation study, the filter demonstrated an overall sensitivity of 97.19% and NNR of 42. The filter reliably identifies studies about Germany, enhancing screening efficiency and can be applied in evidence syntheses focusing on Germany.

Interventions to treat and prevent postpartum depression: a protocol for systematic review of the literature and parallel network meta-analyses

IntroductionPostpartum depression has costly consequences for the mother, baby, and society. Numerous pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions are available for the prevention and treatment of postpartum depression. To date, no attempt has been made to synthesize the evidence from comparisons of interventions both within and across these categories.MethodsWe will perform a systematic review of the literature and perform network meta-analysis of interventions to (a) prevent and (b) treat postpartum depression. This review will include studies of primiparous or multiparous women during pregnancy or within 12 months of delivery of their baby that assess either interventions initiated during pregnancy or within 1 year of childbirth. Comparators will be other eligible interventions or control conditions. The outcome of interests will be related to the antidepressant efficacy of the interventions as well as their acceptability. The published literature will be searched in Ovid MEDLINE 1946-, Embase.com 1947-, Scopus 1823-, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and ClinicalTrials.gov. The search will use a combination of standardized terms and keywords for postpartum depression, a sensitive search filter to limit for randomized controlled trials, and a librarian-created “humans” filter. The search results will be uploaded to the Covidence online systematic review platform (Veritas Health Information Ltd., Victoria, Australia) where two review team members will independently screen articles. We will extract data to include year of publication, language, country, participants (number, demographic data, eligibility criteria, psychiatric symptoms, and co-morbidities), characteristics of the intervention and control conditions, and reported outcomes. Risk of bias for each study will be assessed independently by two review authors using the RoB 2: A revised Cochrane risk of bias tool for randomized trials. Network meta-analysis will be performed using a Bayesian hierarchical model supplemented with a Markov chain Monte Carlo approach.DiscussionPostpartum depression is a devastating disease with long-lasting consequences. Given the numerous available interventions to both prevent and treat postpartum depression and the great number of studies comparing them, it is imperative that clinicians and patients are provided with an assessment of their comparative efficacy and acceptability.Systematic review registrationProspero registration (CRD42022303247).

Immune checkpoint inhibitors in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: A systematic review of phase-3 clinical trials.

BACKGROUNDThe outcomes of patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) who are not candidates for local salvage therapy and of those diagnosed with recurrent or metastatic disease are dismal. A relatively new systemic therapy option that emerged in recent years in the treatment of advanced HNSCC is immunotherapy using immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). The safety profile and anti-tumor activity of these agents demonstrated in early phase clinical trials paved the way to the initiation of several promising phase-3 trials in the field.AIMTo evaluate the evidence on the effectiveness of ICIs in HNSCC, based on published phase-3 clinical trials.METHODSWe searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Scopus to identify published literature evaluating immunotherapy using ICIs in recurrent or metastatic HNSCC (R/M HNSCC) and locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (LAHNSCC). We used a combination of standardized search terms and keywords including head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, recurrent, metastatic, locally advanced, immunotherapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors, monoclonal antibodies, programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1), programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), cytotoxic T- lymphocyte associated protein-4 (CTLA-4), and phase-3 clinical trial. A sensitive search filter was used to limit our results to randomized controlled trials.RESULTSFive phase-3 clinical trials have reported the data on the effectiveness of immunotherapy in HNSCC so far: Four in R/M HNSCC and one in LAHNSCC. In patients with R/M HNSCC, anti-PD-1 agents nivolumab and pembrolizumab demonstrated improved survival benefits in the second-line treatment setting compared to the standard of care (standard single-agent systemic therapy). While the net gain in overall survival (OS) with nivolumab was 2.4 mo [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.69, P = 0.01], that with pembrolizumab was 1.5 mo (HR = 0.80 nominal P = 0.0161). The anti-PD-L1 agent durvalumab with or without the anti-cytotoxic T- lymphocyte associated protein-4 agent tremelimumab did not result in any beneficial outcomes. In the first-line setting, in R/M HNSCC, pembrolizumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy resulted in significant improvement in survival with a net gain in OS of 2.3 mo (HR = 0.77, P = 0.0034) in the overall population and a net gain in OS of 4.2 mo in the PD-L1 positive (combined positive score > 20) population compared to standard of care (EXTREME regime). In patients with PD-L1 positive R/M HNSCC, monotherapy with pembrolizumab also demonstrated statistically significant improvement in survival compared to EXTREME. In LAHNSCC, immunotherapy using avelumab (an anti-PD-L1 agent) along with standard chemoradiation therapy did not result in improved outcomes compared to placebo plus chemoradiation therapy.CONCLUSIONAnti-PD-1 agents provide survival benefits in R/M HNSCC in the first and second-line settings, with acceptable toxicity profiles compared to standard therapy. There is no proven efficacy in the curative setting to date.

Preliminary comparison of the performance of the National Library of Medicine's systematic review publication type and the sensitive clinical queries filter for systematic reviews in PubMed.

Objective:The National Library of Medicine (NLM) inaugurated a “publication type” concept to facilitate searches for systematic reviews (SRs). On the other hand, clinical queries (CQs) are validated search strategies designed to retrieve scientifically sound, clinically relevant original and review articles from biomedical literature databases. We compared the retrieval performance of the SR publication type (SR[pt]) against the most sensitive CQ for systematic review articles (CQrs) in PubMed.Methods:We ran date-limited searches of SR[pt] and CQrs to compare the relative yield of articles and SRs, focusing on the differences in retrieval of SRs by SR[pt] but not CQrs (SR[pt] NOT CQrs) and CQrs NOT SR[pt]. Random samples of articles retrieved in each of these comparisons were examined for SRs until a consistent pattern became evident.Results:For SR[pt] NOT CQrs, the yield was relatively low in quantity but rich in quality, with 79% of the articles being SRs. For CQrs NOT SR[pt], the yield was high in quantity but low in quality, with only 8% being SRs. For CQrs AND SR[pt], the quality was highest, with 92% being SRs.Conclusions:We found that SR[pt] had high precision and specificity for SRs but low recall (sensitivity), whereas CQrs had much higher recall. SR[pt] OR CQrs added valid SRs to the CQrs yield at low cost (i.e., added few non-SRs). For searches that are intended to be exhaustive for SRs, SR[pt] can be added to existing sensitive search filters.

Which are the most sensitive search filters to identify randomized controlled trials in MEDLINE?

Objective:The Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews contains search filters to find randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in Ovid MEDLINE: one maximizing sensitivity and another balancing sensitivity and precision. These filters were originally published in 1994 and were adapted and updated in 2008. To determine the performance of these filters, the authors tested them and thirty-six other MEDLINE filters against a large new gold standard set of relevant records.Methods:We identified a gold standard set of RCT reports published in 2016 from the Cochrane CENTRAL database of controlled clinical trials. We retrieved the records in Ovid MEDLINE and combined these with each RCT filter. We calculated their sensitivity, relative precision, and f-scores.Results:The gold standard comprised 27,617 records. MEDLINE searches were run on July 16, 2019. The most sensitive RCT filter was Duggan et al. (sensitivity=0.99). The Cochrane sensitivity-maximizing RCT filter had a sensitivity of 0.96 but was more precise than Duggan et al. (0.14 compared to 0.04 for Duggan). The most precise RCT filters had 0.97 relative precision and 0.83 sensitivity.Conclusions:The Cochrane Ovid MEDLINE sensitivity-maximizing RCT filter can continue to be used by Cochrane reviewers and to populate CENTRAL, as it has very high sensitivity and a slightly better precision relative to more sensitive filters. The results of this study, which used a very large gold standard to compare the performance of all known RCT filters, allows searchers to make better informed decisions about which filters to use for their work.

A validated search filter for the identification of endocrine disruptors based on the ECHA/EFSA guidance recommendations

A guidance document for the identification of endocrine disruptors (EDs) in the regulatory assessment of plant protection products (PPP) and biocidal products (BP) has been published by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The ECHA/EFSA guidance, mainly addressing EATS (estrogen, androgen, thyroid, steroidogenesis) modalities, is intended to guide applicants and assessors of the competent regulatory authorities on the implementation of the scientific criteria for the determination of ED properties pursuant to the recently implemented PPP (EU 2018/605) and BP (EU 2017/2100) EU Regulations. In this study, a search filter for targeted literature search in context of assessing if a substance can be identified as an ED relevant for human health was developed and validated. Development of the search filter was based on the search strategy presented in the ECHA/EFSA guidance and using the estrogenic chemical Bisphenol AF (BPAF) as a model substance. Information specialists from two independent institutions developed refined search filters based on the suggested original search strategy published (ECHA/EFSA guidance - Appendix F). Articles identified by a systematic literature search for BPAF were screened for relevance with inclusion and exclusion criteria by two independent reviewers obtaining positive (relevant) and negative (irrelevant) controls. The developed search filter was quantitatively evaluated in terms of sensitivity, specificity and precision based on the positive and negative controls. The developed filter was then validated for T modality by its application to the known thyroid-disruptor perchlorate. The result is a sensitive search filter with sufficient specificity, which can be applied for all chemicals where a targeted literature search is needed to assess and identify ED properties of chemicals with relevance for humans. Future application of the filter to a broader range of chemicals may identify further points of improvement.

Evaluation of measurement properties of pediatric acute diarrheal severity scoring systems

Methods Medline, EMbase and the Cochrane library were searched using a highly sensitive search filter developed by Terwee et al. to identify studies that evaluated measurement properties. This search filter was combined with the names of ten pre-identified scales of pediatric diarrhea severity. Reference lists from included articles and the original publications for the ten diarrhea scales were also reviewed. Eligibility criteria were: 1) ability to develop or evaluate the measurement properties – i.e. content validity, construct validity, reliability or responsiveness – of a measurement instrument; 2) ability to measure severity of diarrhea/gastroenteritis; and 3) ability of the scale to be developed or adapted for the pediatric population (0-18 y/o). The methodological quality of the included studies and the results of measurement properties were appraised using checklists from the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) group. Results The search yielded 98 potentially relevant articles, of which only 2 articles met inclusion criteria. Studies that did not evaluate measurement properties of the identified scales or did not measure pediatric diarrhea were excluded. Both included studies evaluated the measurement properties of the “Modified Vesikari score” (MVS). Assessment of methodological quality determined that both studies were of ‘poor’ quality in most properties except for hypothesis testing, which was rated as ‘good’. MVS was rated as positive for face and construct validity and indeterminate for internal consistency and interpretability.

Are men difficult to find? Identifying male-specific studies in MEDLINE and Embase.

BackgroundSystematic reviews often investigate the effectiveness of interventions for one sex. However, identifying interventions with data presented according to the sex of study participants can be challenging due to suboptimal indexing in bibliographic databases and poor reporting in titles and abstracts. The purposes of this study were to develop a highly sensitive search filter to identify literature relevant to men's health and to assess the performance of a range of sex-specific search terms used individually and in various combinations.MethodsComprehensive electronic searches were undertaken across a range of databases to inform a series of systematic reviews investigating obesity management for men. The included studies formed a reference standard set. A set of sex-specific search terms, identified from database-specific controlled vocabularies and from natural language used in the titles and abstracts of relevant papers, was investigated in MEDLINE and Embase. Sensitivity, precision, number needed to read (NNR) and percent reduction in results compared to searching without sex-specific terms were calculated.ResultsThe reference standard set comprised 57 papers in MEDLINE and 63 in Embase. Seven sex-specific search terms were identified. Searching without sex-specific terms returned 31,897 results in MEDLINE and 37,351 in Embase and identified 84% (MEDLINE) and 83% (Embase) of the reference standard sets. The best performing individual sex-specific term achieved 100%/98% sensitivity (MEDLINE/Embase), NNR 544/609 (MEDLINE/Embase) and reduced the number of results by 18%/17% (MEDLINE/Embase), relative to searching without sex-specific terms. The best performing filter, compromising different combinations of controlled vocabulary terms and natural language, achieved higher sensitivity (MEDLINE and Embase 100%), greater reduction in number of results (MEDLINE/Embase 24%/20%) and greater reduction in NNR (MEDLINE/Embase 506/578) than the best performing individual sex-specific term.ConclusionsThe proposed MEDLINE and Embase filters achieved high sensitivity and a reduction in the number of search results and NNR, indicating that they are useful tools for efficient, comprehensive literature searching but their performance is partially dependent on the appropriate use of database controlled vocabularies and index terms.

Sixteenth biannual report of the Cochrane Haematological Malignancies Group: focus on Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

This sixteenth biannual report of the Cochrane Haematological Malignancies Group highlights recently published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the field of hemato-oncology, with special focus on non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The report covers the publication period June 2012 to July 2013. Trials are selected regarding their methodology and implication for clinical practice. Studies were identified by electronic search of MEDLINE using a broad search filter that covers all topics in hemato-oncology combined with a highly sensitive search filter for randomized trials (Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions). Four RCTs are presented in detail, followed by two further RCTs of high importance in a short version. The report is finalized with an overview of new and updated Cochrane Reviews.

Fifteenth Biannual Report of the Cochrane Haematological Malignancies Group--Focus on Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

This fifteenth biannual report of the Cochrane Haematological Malignancies Group (CHMG) highlights recently published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the field of hemato-oncology, covering the publication period from October 2011 to May 2012. Implications for clinical practice and methodological aspects are the main principles for selecting trials for this report. Studies were identified by electronic search of MEDLINE using a broad search filter that covers all topics in hemato-oncology combined with a highly sensitive search filter for randomized trials (Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions).

MEDLINE clinical queries are robust when searching in recent publishing years

To determine if the PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE clinical queries (which were developed in the publishing year 2000, for the purpose categories therapy, diagnosis, prognosis, etiology, and clinical prediction guides) perform as well when searching in current publishing years. A gold standard database of recently published research literature was created using the McMaster health knowledge refinery (http://hiru.mcmaster.ca/hiru/HIRU_McMaster_HKR.aspx) and its continuously updated database, McMaster PLUS (http://hiru.mcmaster.ca/hiru/HIRU_McMaster_PLUS_projects.aspx). This database contains articles from over 120 clinical journals that are tagged for meeting or not meeting criteria for scientific merit and clinical relevance. The clinical queries sensitive ('broad') and specific ('narrow') search filters were tested in this gold standard database, and sensitivity and specificity were calculated and compared with those originally reported for the clinical queries. In all cases, the sensitivity of the highly sensitive search filters and the specificity of the highly specific search filters did not differ substantively when comparing results derived in 2000 with those derived in a more current database. In addition, in all cases, the specificities for the highly sensitive search filters and the sensitivities for the highly specific search filters remained above 50% when testing them in the current database. These results are reassuring for modern-day searchers. The clinical queries that were derived in the year 2000 perform equally well a decade later. The PubMed and Ovid MEDLINE clinical queries have been revalidated and remain a useful public resource for searching the world's medical literature for research that is most relevant to clinical care.

Searching for evidence-based geriatrics: Tips and tools for finding evidence in the medical literature

IntroductionInformation to treat geriatric patients evidence-based is hard to find. Recently, a sensitive and a specific search filter to improve searching for literature relevant to geriatric medicine were developed in a research setting. The aim of this study is to determine whether these filters are able to find the articles considered relevant for daily clinical practice by young geriatricians. Materials and methodsFor this study, we included references identified for lectures of the session of the 9th European Academy for Medicine of Ageing (EAMA) course 2011 about “Ageing and functionality” and lectures of the session entitled “Evidence-Based Medicine” (EBM). Relevant references were combined with the specific and sensitive search strategy in MEDLINE. ResultsOf the 50 relevant articles for the course “Functionality”, the sensitive filter identified 46 (92%); the specific filter 39 (78%). Of the 92 relevant references on “EBM”, the sensitive filter retrieved 80 (87%), the specific filter 59 (64%). Articles not identified by the sensitive filter, were mostly missed because the filter specifically search for relevant terms mentioned in title or abstract. ConclusionGeriatricians can be confident that the majority of relevant articles will be retrieved by the sensitive search filter. Searching for literature will be simplified and made more efficient by using a search filter. By demonstrating the pros of the filter we hope to stimulate implementation in daily clinical practice, so our elderly population is as much treated by the most up to date available evidence as possible.

Glomerular disease search filters for Pubmed, Ovid Medline, and Embase: a development and validation study.

BackgroundTools to enhance physician searches of Medline and other bibliographic databases have potential to improve the application of new knowledge in patient care. This is particularly true for articles about glomerular disease, which are published across multiple disciplines and are often difficult to track down. Our objective was to develop and test search filters for PubMed, Ovid Medline, and Embase that allow physicians to search within a subset of the database to retrieve articles relevant to glomerular disease.MethodsWe used a diagnostic test assessment framework with development and validation phases. We read a total of 22,992 full text articles for relevance and assigned them to the development or validation set to define the reference standard. We then used combinations of search terms to develop 997,298 unique glomerular disease filters. Outcome measures for each filter included sensitivity, specificity, precision, and accuracy. We selected optimal sensitive and specific search filters for each database and applied them to the validation set to test performance.ResultsHigh performance filters achieved at least 93.8% sensitivity and specificity in the development set. Filters optimized for sensitivity reached at least 96.7% sensitivity and filters optimized for specificity reached at least 98.4% specificity. Performance of these filters was consistent in the validation set and similar among all three databases.ConclusionsPubMed, Ovid Medline, and Embase can be filtered for articles relevant to glomerular disease in a reliable manner. These filters can now be used to facilitate physician searching.

Search filters to identify geriatric medicine in Medline

ObjectivesTo create user-friendly search filters with high sensitivity, specificity, and precision to identify articles on geriatric medicine in Medline.DesignA diagnostic test assessment framework was used. A reference set of 2255 articles was created by hand-searching 22 biomedical journals in Medline, and each article was labeled as ‘relevant’, ‘not relevant’, or ‘possibly relevant’ for geriatric medicine. From the relevant articles, search terms were identified to compile different search strategies. The articles retrieved by the various search strategies were compared with articles from the reference set as the index test to create the search filters.MeasuresSensitivity, specificity, precision, accuracy, and number-needed-to-read (NNR) were calculated by comparing the results retrieved by the different search strategies with the reference set.ResultsThe most sensitive search filter had a sensitivity of 94.8%, a specificity of 88.7%, a precision of 73.0%, and an accuracy of 90.2%. It had an NNR of 1.37. The most specific search filter had a specificity of 96.6%, a sensitivity of 69.1%, a precision of 86.6%, and an accuracy of 89.9%. It had an NNR of 1.15.ConclusionThese geriatric search filters simplify searching for relevant literature and therefore contribute to better evidence-based practice. The filters are useful to both the clinician who wants to find a quick answer to a clinical question and the researcher who wants to find as many relevant articles as possible without retrieving too many irrelevant articles.

Thirteenth Biannual Report of the Cochrane Haematological Malignancies Group--Focus on Multiple Myeloma

This 13th biannual report of the Cochrane Hematological Malignancies Group highlights recently published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the field of hemato-oncology, covering the publication period from July 2010 to February 2011. Implications for clinical practice and methodological aspects are the main principles for selecting trials for this report. Studies were identified by an electronic search of MEDLINE using a broad search filter that covers all topics in hemato-oncology combined with a highly sensitive search filter for randomized trials (Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions). The electronic search of the OVID MEDLINE database was conducted on February 28, 2011. In this summary of key features of recent RCTs, we focus on multiple myeloma (MM). Of the 62 identified RCTs, 15 evaluated different treatment approaches in patients with MM. Five of these 15 trials are selected and presented in detail [three in long version (1–3) and two in short version (4,5)]. Three further RCTs of clinical importance are also presented in less detail (6–8).

Sensitive Clinical Queries retrieved relevant systematic reviews as well as primary studies: an analytic survey

Objective To determine how well the previously validated broad and narrow Clinical Queries for treatment, diagnosis, prognosis, and etiology studies, retrieve not only primary studies but also relevant systematic reviews. Study Design and Setting Using the Clinical Hedges Database housed at McMaster University, we tested the retrieval performance of the Clinical Queries. Results For most purpose categories (therapy, diagnosis, prognosis, and etiology) and most databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO), the sensitive (broad) Clinical Queries search terms had sensitivities higher than 90% for retrieving relevant systematic reviews as well as primary studies. When testing specific (narrow) Clinical Queries, in 8 of 12 cases, specificity was 94% or higher, but sensitivity dropped below 50%. For all purpose categories and all databases, performance was improved when combining the sensitive or specific Clinical Queries with our existing sensitive or specific systematic review search filter using the Boolean OR; sensitivities ranged from 90.7% to 99.7% and specificities ranged from 92.4% to 98.0% with sensitivities higher than 50%. Conclusion The sensitive Clinical Queries for therapy, diagnosis, prognosis, and etiology perform well in retrieving not only primary studies but also systematic reviews. Search performance can be improved by combining the Clinical Queries with our sensitive or specific systematic review filter.

Twelfth Biannual Report of the Cochrane Haematological Malignancies Group--Focus on Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors

This 12th biannual report of the Cochrane Haematological Malignancies Group highlights recently published randomized controlled trials in the field of hemato-oncology, covering the publication period from September 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010. Implication for clinical practice and methodological aspects are the main principles used to select trials for this report. Studies on tyrosine kinase inhibitors for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia were identified through electronic search of MEDLINE with a broad search filter that covered all topics in hemato-oncology combined with a highly sensitive search filter for randomized studies as described in the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions.

Eleventh Biannual Report of the Cochrane Haematological Malignancies Group: Focus on Hodgkin Lymphoma

The 11th biannual report of the Cochrane Haematological Malignancies Group highlights recently published randomized controlled trials in the field of hemato-oncology that were identified through the continuous systematic search of MEDLINE. For this electronic search, a broad search filter covering all topics in hemato-oncology was combined with a highly sensitive search filter for randomized studies. This report covers publications from February 1, 2009, through August 31, 2009 (including electronic publications). For this 7-month period, 6344 potentially interesting articles were screened to identify 121 controlled clinical trials (randomized controlled trials or quasi-randomized clinical trials) of therapeutic interventions in hematologic malignancies.

307 Talking about sex: identifying psycho-sexual concerns in the clinic

The International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) is a patient-reported outcome measure to evaluate erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems in men.To perform a systematic review of the measurement properties of the 15-item patient-reported outcome measure (IIEF-15) and the shortened 5-item version (IIEF-5).A systematic search of scientific literature up to April 2018 was performed. Data were extracted and analyzed according to COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) guidelines for structural validity, internal consistency, reliability, measurement error, hypothesis testing for construct validity, and responsiveness. Evidence of measurement properties was categorized into sufficient, insufficient, inconsistent, or indeterminate, and quality of evidence as very high, high, moderate, or low.40 studies were included. The evidence for criterion validity (of the Erectile Function subscale), and responsiveness of the IIEF-15 was sufficient (high quality), but inconsistent (moderate quality) for structural validity, internal consistency, construct validity, and test-retest reliability. Evidence for structural validity, test-retest reliability, construct validity, and criterion validity of the IIEF-5 was sufficient (moderate quality) but indeterminate for internal consistency, measurement error, and responsiveness.Lack of evidence for and evidence not supporting some of the measurement properties of the IIEF-15 and IIEF-5 shows the importance of further research on the validity of these questionnaires in clinical research and clinical practice.A strength of the current review is the use of predefined guidelines (COSMIN). A limitation of this review is the use of a precise rather than a sensitive search filter regarding measurement properties to identify studies to be included.The IIEF requires more research on structural validity (IIEF-15), internal consistency (IIEF-15 and IIEF-5), construct validity (IIEF-15), measurement error (IIEF-15 and IIEF-5), and responsiveness (IIEF-5). The most pressing matter for future research is determining the unidimensionality of the IIEF-5 and the exact factor structure of the IIEF-15.Neijenhuijs KI, Holtmaat K, Aaronson NK, et al. The International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF)—A Systematic Review of Measurement Properties. J Sex Med 2019;16:1078–1091.

Development of a methodological PubMed search filter for finding studies on measurement properties of measurement instruments

ObjectivesFor the measurement of patient-reported outcomes, such as (health-related) quality of life, often many measurement instruments exist that intend to measure the same construct. To facilitate instrument selection, our aim was to develop a highly sensitive search filter for finding studies on measurement properties of measurement instruments in PubMed and a more precise search filter that needs less abstracts to be screened, but at a higher risk of missing relevant studies.MethodsA random sample of 10,000 PubMed records (01-01-1990 to 31-12-2006) was used as a gold standard. Studies on measurement properties were identified using an exclusion filter and hand searching. Search terms were selected from the relevant records in the gold standard as well as from 100 systematic reviews of measurement properties and combined based on sensitivity and precision. The performance of the filters was tested in the gold standard as well as in two validation sets, by calculating sensitivity, precision, specificity, and number needed to read.ResultsWe identified 116 studies on measurement properties in the gold standard. The sensitive search filter was able to retrieve 113 of these 116 studies (sensitivity 97.4%, precision 4.4%). The precise search filter had a sensitivity of 93.1% and a precision of 9.4%. Both filters performed very well in the validation sets.ConclusionThe use of these search filters will contribute to evidence-based selection of measurement instruments in all medical fields.