It is the cache of ${baseHref}. It is a snapshot of the page. The current page could have changed in the meantime.
Tip: To quickly find your search term on this page, press Ctrl+F or ⌘-F (Mac) and use the find bar.

Titles versus titles and abstracts for initial screening of articles f
skip to content
Dovepress - Open Access to Scientific and Medical Research
View our mobile site

14789

Titles versus titles and abstracts for initial screening of articles for systematic reviews



Original Research

(3197) Total Article Views


Authors: Mateen FJ, Oh J, Tergas AI, Bhayani NH, Kamdar BB

Published Date March 2013 Volume 2013:5(1) Pages 89 - 95
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/CLEP.S43118

Received: 22 January 2013
Accepted: 11 February 2013
Published: 15 March 2013
Farrah J Mateen,1,2 Jiwon Oh,1,2 Ana I Tergas,1,3 Neil H Bhayani,1,4 Biren B Kamdar1,5

1Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2Department of Neurology, 3Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD, USA; 4Department of Surgery, Howard University Hospital, Washington, DC, USA; 5Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

Background: There is no consensus on whether screening titles alone or titles and abstracts together is the preferable strategy for inclusion of articles in a systematic review.
Methods: Two methods of screening articles for inclusion in a systematic review were compared: titles first versus titles and abstracts simultaneously. Each citation found in MEDLINE or Embase was reviewed by two physician reviewers for prespecified criteria: the citation included (1) primary data; (2) the exposure of interest; and (3) the outcome of interest.
Results: There were 2965 unique citations. The titles first strategy resulted in an immediate rejection of 2558 (86%) of the records after reading the title alone, requiring review of 239 titles and abstracts, and subsequently 176 full text articles. The simultaneous titles and abstracts review led to rejection of 2782 citations (94%) and review of 183 full text articles. Interreviewer agreement to include an article for full text review using the titles-first screening strategy was 89%–94% (kappa = 0.54) and 96%–97% (kappa = 0.56) for titles and abstracts combined. The final systematic review included 13 articles, all of which were identified by both screening strategies (yield 100%, burden 114%). Precision was higher in the titles and abstracts method (7.1% versus 3.2%) but recall was the same (100% versus 100%), leading to a higher F-measure for the titles and abstracts approach (0.1327 versus 0.0619).
Conclusion: Screening via a titles-first approach may be more efficient than screening titles and abstracts together.
Keywords: meta-analysis, research methods, epidemiology, systematic review



Post to:
Cannotea Citeulike Del.icio.us Facebook LinkedIn Twitter


Readers of this article also read: