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Appraisal of: "Cooper, C., Snowsill, T., Worsley, C., Prowse, A., O'Mara-Eves, A., Greenwood, H., Boulton, E., & Strickson, A. (2020). Handsearching had best recall but poor efficiency when exporting to a bibliographic tool: case study. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 123, 39–48. "
Appraisal of: "Cooper, C., Snowsill, T., Worsley, C., Prowse, A., O'Mara-Eves, A., Greenwood, H., Boulton, E., & Strickson, A. (2020). Handsearching had best recall but poor efficiency when exporting to a bibliographic tool: case study. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 123, 39–48. "
Reviewer(s):
Deirdre Beecher
Alan Lovell
MS Copilot
Full Reference:
Cooper, C., Snowsill, T., Worsley, C., Prowse, A., O'Mara-Eves, A., Greenwood, H., Boulton, E., & Strickson, A. (2020). Handsearching had best recall but poor efficiency when exporting to a bibliographic tool: case study. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 123, 39–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.03.013.
Short description:
This case study evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of five methods for identifying and exporting conference abstracts from the American Society of Hematology (ASH) 2016–2018 proceedings into a bibliographic management tool for a systematic review. The reference standard was a manual handsearch of the journal Blood’s supplement editions, identifying 604 potentially eligible abstracts and 15 confirmed eligible ones. Comparators included contacting the journal, keyword searching on the journal website, and searching Embase, EndNote, and CPCI-S.
The study found that only the journal’s keyword search function (Comparator 2) matched the handsearch in recall and was more efficient. All other methods missed eligible abstracts. Handsearching, while comprehensive, was time-consuming and lacked bulk export functionality. The authors highlight the trade-off between effectiveness and efficiency and recommend improvements in journal interfaces and further research into conference abstract indexing.
Limitations stated by the author(s):
The study is based on a single case (ASH conference), limiting generalisability.
Search results may vary over time as databases update.
Only one researcher conducted the handsearch, without independent verification.
The impact of missing abstracts on review outcomes was not empirically tested.
Limitations stated by the reviewer(s):
Efficiency metrics are based on time and cost but do not account for usability or researcher fatigue.
The reliance on manual export methods may not reflect current technological capabilities or automation options.
Study Type:
Case study (Methodological evaluation)
Related Chapters:
Tags:
Literature searching
Hand searching
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