Information retrieval in systematic reviews: challenges in the public health arena

Abstract

Background: Information retrieval for systematic reviews in occupational injuries and other public health areas is much more elusive than retrieval for reviews in clinical medicine, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field and the lack of a significant body of evaluative literature.

Objective: The objective of this study is to provide information about challenges and methodology in relevant literature retrieval for systematic reviews in the effectiveness of strategies to prevent occupational injury.

Methods: Participants from Injury Control Research Centers and Agricultural Health and Safety Centers identified 12 areas of occupational injury and evaluated the effectiveness of interventions in each area. A systematic review of the literature was conducted, and results were critically reviewed and summarized.

Results: The search strategy captured 41,871 abstracts or titles across all research topics. After screening, 1356 documents were identified as being potentially eligible studies. Relevant articles were also identified through gleaning references and contact with professionals in the field.

Conclusions: Literature reviews in the field of occupational injury cannot be limited to database searches. Much of the literature is not well-indexed, and librarians must employ information retrieval methods other than database searching to retrieve relevant literature in the field.