Literature Search Strategies

Searching by Domain

Therapy	Harm	Prognosis	Diagnosis
Cochrane Library (Cochrane Reviews/DARE reviews)	If an ADR (adverse drug reaction): Evidence Based Drug Handbook (e.g. Micromedex or Martindales)	Evidence Based Textbook (e.g. SAM or Up to Date) OR Current editions of specialty or subspecialty textbooks (e.g. MD Consult)	Evidence Based Textbook (e.g. SAM or Up to Date) OR Current editions of specialty or subspecialty textbooks (e.g. MD Consult)
Evidence Based Textbook (e.g. SAM)	If not an ADR: Evidence Based Textbook (e.g. SAM) OR Current editions of specialty or subspecialty textbooks (e.g. MD Consult) OR Possibly a toxicology, environmental or occupational health encyclopedia or handbook	Medline (search for subjects "Prognosis" or "Survival Analysis" or for truncated textword "prognos"	Best Evidence
Best Evidence/Clinical Evidence	EMBASE (search for articles indexed as "Case Control Study" or "Cohort Analysis" or truncated textword "risk"	EMBASE (search for articles whose titles or abstracts contain the truncated textword "prognos" or are indexed under "Prognosis" or explode "Survival")	Clinical Practice Guideline (only if it is current and has good levels or evidence)
Clinical Practice Guideline (only if it is current and has good levels of evidence)	Medline (search for "Case Control Studies" (MESH) or "Cohort Studies" (MESH) without exploding or truncated textword risk* or harm*)	Web of Science	Medline (search for articles with "sensitivity and specificity")
Medline (search for or limit to "randomized controlled trials" or "meta analysis"	Web of Science		Embase (search for articles that deal with "Diagnostic Accuracy")
EMBASE (search for RCTs)			Web of Science
Web of Science