Front page
Handbook information
Part 1: Cochrane reviews
Part 2: General methods for Cochrane reviews
5 Defining the review question and developing criteria for including studies
6 Searching for studies
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Sources to search
6.3 Planning the search process
6.4 Designing search strategies
6.4.1 Designing search strategies - an introduction
6.4.2 Structure of a search strategy
6.4.3 Service providers and search interfaces
6.4.4 Sensitivity versus precision
6.4.5 Controlled vocabulary and text words
6.4.6 Synonyms, related terms, variant spellings, truncation and wildcards
6.4.7 Boolean operators (AND, OR and NOT)
Figure 6.4.a: Combining concepts as search sets
6.4.8 Proximity operators (NEAR, NEXT and ADJ)
6.4.9 Language, date and document format restrictions
6.4.10 Identifying fraudulent studies, other retracted publications, errata and comments
6.4.11 Search filters
6.4.12 Updating searches
6.4.13 Demonstration search strategies
Box 6.4.e: Demonstration search strategy for CENTRAL, for the topic 'Tamoxifen for breast cancer'
Box 6.4.f: Demonstration search strategy for MEDLINE (Ovid format), for the topic 'Tamoxifen for breast cancer'
6.4.14 Summary points
6.5 Managing references
6.6 Documenting and reporting the search process
6.7 Chapter information
Box 6.7.a: The Cochrane Information Retrieval Methods Group
6.8 References
7 Selecting studies and collecting data
8 Assessing risk of bias in included studies
9 Analysing data and undertaking meta-analyses
10 Addressing reporting biases
11 Presenting results and 'Summary of findings' tables
12 Interpreting results and drawing conclusions
Part 3: Special topics
Additional material
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