We screen all of the systematic reviews and broad synthesis included in Epistemonikos database (a detailed description of Epistemonikos methods can be found here).
Briefly, we consider the following types of studies for inclusion if they address an explicit question about health systems:
We exclude systematic reviews and broad syntheses of systematic reviews that address clinical questions, including questions about the effects of clinical interventions, diagnostic tests, prognosis and etiology.
Multiple databases, including Pubmed and EMBASE are screened as part of Epistemonikos project. Potentially relevant articles from most databases are retrieved in a daily basis. Then a network of Collaborators of Epistemonikos screen each article for inclusion in Epistemonikos.
The title and abstract of all of the systematic reviews and broad syntheses of systematic reviews included in Epistemonikos are screened independently by at least two researchers to evaluate if they are eligible for PDQ-Evidence. Discrepancies are resolved by consensus or by an arbiter. If it is not possible to determine eligibility based on the title and abstract, the full text are retrieved and evaluated for inclusion by a senior researcher.
The following databases are screened in Epistemonikos:
The following flow diagram shows the status of the screening process of systematic reviews for PDQ Evidence.
A detailed flow diagram, including the status of different databases and years, can be seen here.
PDQ-Evidence is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License
