How to prepare a systematic review of economic evaluations for clinical practice guidelines: database selection and search strategy development (part 2/3)

ABSTRACT

Introduction: This article is part of the series “How to prepare a systematic review of economic evaluations (EES) for informing evidence-based healthcare decisions”, in which a five-step approach is proposed.

Areas covered: This paper focuses on the selection of relevant databases and developing a search strategy for detecting EEs, as well as on how to perform the search and how to extract relevant data from retrieved records.

Expert commentary: Thus far, little has been published on how to conduct systematic review EEs. Moreover, reliable sources of information, such as the Health Economic Evaluation Database, have ceased to publish updates. Researchers are thus left without authoritative guidance on how to conduct SR-EEs. Together with van Mastrigt et al. we seek to fill this gap.

KEYWORDS:

• Methods
• information retrieval
• systematic literature review
• databases
• search engine
• search strategy
• economic evaluation
• clinical practice guidelines
• guidance

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the other members of the project: Ken Redekop (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam), Ben Wijnen (Maastricht University, Maastricht), Mickael Hiligsmann (Maastricht University, Maastricht), Chris Arts (Maastricht University), Reina de Kinderen (Maastricht University, Maastricht), Pieter Broos (Knowledge Institute of Medical specialist, Utrecht), Toon Lamberts (Knowledge Institute of Medical specialist, Utrecht), Bernard Elsman (Deventer Ziekenhuis, Deventer), for their valuable feedback on the draft of this paper. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank Barbara Greenberg for her English editing services.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Additional information

Funding

This project received financial support by the Dutch Society of Medical Specialists, (Stichting Kwaliteitsgelden Medisch Specialisten): project number: 329666498, Utrecht, and from ZonMw (the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development, project number: 836022001, The Hague).