The Excel method is efficient and free and can produce transparent and complete reports of systematic reviews. It is a valid alternative to the systematic reviews produced by advanced tools and software.
Librarians and information specialists are experts in designing comprehensive literature searches, such as those needed for Evidence Syntheses (ES). The contributions of these professionals to ES research teams have several documented benefits, especially when they collaborate on the project. Howeve …
The criteria were grouped into 24 overarching criteria. The most frequently used criteria were readability, quality, suitability, comprehensibility and understandability.
The reviewed studies (N = 48) revealed that HCPs have a wide range of DI needs, with the top needs being similar across the three HCPs. Information sources used most often by all three groups were tertiary, followed by human and primary sources. Factors relating to the source characteristics were the most reported facilitators and barriers to DI-seeking. Some differences in drug ISB were also identified.
Our study confirmed gender as an important dimension to explain students' OHISB differences, which could help institutions promote gender-specific education programmes and provide gender-oriented health information.
Background Poor translation of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) into clinical practice is a barrier to the provision of consistent and high-quality evidence-based care. The objective was to systematically review the roles and effectiveness of knowledge brokers (KBs) for translating CPGs in health-related settings.
The paper is a conceptual piece based on an exploratory literature review, targeting librarians interested in AI from a strategic rather than a technical perspective. Five distinct types of use cases of AI are identified for libraries, each with its own underlying drivers and barriers, and skills demands. They are applications in library back-end processes, in library services, through the creation of communities of data scientists, in data and AI literacy and in user management. Each of the different applications has its own drivers and barriers. It is hard to anticipate the impact on professional work but as information environment becomes more complex it is likely that librarians will continue to have a very important role
The category of application consisted of strengthening education, promoting users' information literacy, finding resources, user guidance, gamification, educational justice, helping management, enriching resources, providing new services and economic savings. The advantages were library services, sociocultural excellence, educational level, software potential and helping the librarian. The challenges were technical, economic and cultural barriers. Libraries can attract many users by enacting effective policies, using technology and enriching the content of resources. AR can greatly assist library management and improve the librarians' and users' professional activities.
we often think in terms of a digital-physical dichotomy, where these constitute separate pillars. I would argue this no longer reflects our reality. Digital-physical is a complex intersection, not two separate worlds. We can see this in the way technology enhances user experience of physical space, and the way digitisation has created new ways to explore physical artefacts.
Results
The reviewed studies (N = 48) revealed that HCPs have a wide range of DI needs, with the top needs being similar across the three HCPs. Information sources used most often by all three groups were tertiary, followed by human and primary sources. Factors relating to the source characteristics were the most reported facilitators and barriers to DI-seeking. Some differences in drug ISB were also identified.
The estimated number of results across the eight searches ranged from 342,000 to 72,300,000. The viewable number ranged from 272 to 364. Across the eight searches the distribution of studies was highest in the first 100 results. However, the lowest ranking relevant studies were ranked 227th and 215th for the two systematic reviews. One study per review was identified uniquely from searching Google Search, both within the first 100 results. The findings suggest it is feasible and desirable to screen Google Search results more extensively than commonly reported.
Selecting a clinically approved one to help support clients. The health app marketplace is vast. Healthcare professionals and patients have access to more than 365,000 digital health products via Google Play and Apple’s App store. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Forward citation searching and web searching are logistically challenging search methods for a systematic review. An understanding of these challenges should encourage expert searchers and review teams to maintain open channels of communication, which should also facilitate improved working relationships.
It summarises the benefits of this accreditation for Health Education England, for employers, and for knowledge and library staff participating in the short courses. Learning points from the experience of the accreditation process are described and shared.
Designed to be used by health and care commissioners, service leads, and digital teams, the framework aims to understand and mitigate the barriers people often face when trying to access digital health and care services, that result in digital exclusion.
Research into digital exclusion shows that there are links between those more likely to be digitally excluded and those more at risk of health inequalities.
Conclusion: Forward citation searching and web searching are logistically challenging search methods for a systematic review. An understanding of these challenges should encourage expert searchers and review teams to maintain open channels of communication, which should also facilitate improved working relationships.
Conclusions: For SRs on SMT, we recommend using the combination suggested by the Cochrane Handbook of Cochrane Library, MEDLINE/PubMed, Embase, and in addition, PEDro and Index to Chiropractic Literature. Google Scholar might be used additionally as a tool for searching gray literature and quality assurance.
Emati provides a weekly updated list of article recommendations and presents it to the user, sorted by probability scores. New article recommendations are also sent to users’ email addresses on a weekly basis. Additionally, Emati has a personalized search feature to search online services’ (such as PubMed and arXiv) content and have the results sorted by the user’s classifier.
Conclusions: The SR Toolbox provides a platform for those undertaking evidence syntheses to locate guidance and software tools to support different aspects of the review process across multiple review types. However, this work has also identified potential gaps in guidance and software that could inform future research.
As a library we came across 7 things which we think will help to consider should you need to clean, reformat, or delete any old data which has been left over the years before the switch in Library Management Systems. Blogpost produced by library in Bradford preparing to move to Koha.
This NIHR Collection summarises the findings of studies that explored research on what happens when health information is not clear; how we can help people understand health information; and which groups of the population may need extra support.
In this article, we compare and contrast methods of reviewing, summarizing, and synthesizing the literature, including systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and narrative reviews. We don't have access to the full text of this article but can try to get it from another library.
The case reports support the premise that Twitter can be an impactful communications tool and can benefit librarians in meaningful ways, both professionally and personally.
A two-part questionnaire was sent to hospital librarians to determine their use of diversity audits in collection management and to provide a tool for a preliminary assessment of their collections’ diversity. Results of the questionnaire indicate that developing diversity within hospital library collections is important to these respondents. These librarians also support diversity in their library personnel, open access, researching critical gaps, and programming.
Results
Librarians affiliated with 127 institutions from 11 countries (including the USS) and 36 USS states and territories responded. One hundred and forty-two of the total 150 analysed responses provided information on full-text access, and 81 of those 142 responses (57%) indicated that the institutions' link-resolver links were included in search results provided to the requester. The survey responses provide information on literature search services regarding turnaround time, use of a citation managers, fees and deduplication.
Living systematic reviews (LSRs) are an increasingly common approach to keeping reviews up to date, in which new relevant studies are incorporated as they become available, so as to inform healthcare policy and practice in a timely manner. While journal publishers have been exploring the publication of LSRs using different updating and publishing approaches, readers cannot currently assess if the evidence underpinning a published LSR is up to date, as neither the search details, the selection process, nor the list of identified studies is made available between the publication of updates. We describe a new method to transparently report the living evidence surveillance process that occurs between published LSR versions.
Key findings: Scopus yielded the highest sensitivity (65%) and precision (47%). The combination of three databases (Scopus, Science Direct and Google Scholar) identified 97% (n = 64) of 66 relevant articles.
LitCovid (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/)-first launched in February 2020-is a first-of-its-kind literature hub for tracking up-to-date published research on COVID-19. The number of articles in LitCovid has increased from 55 000 to ∼300 000 over the past 2.5 years, with a consistent growth rate of ∼10 000 articles per month.
This paper describes how the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK established a development pathway to ensure its information specialists had the skills, knowledge and confidence to undertake search QA. The key component of the pathway is that it blends technical knowledge with interpersonal skills. The pathway develops technical skills in the early steps before using peer support activities to build confidence while undertaking a range of searches.
Place-based partnerships are collaborative arrangements between organisations responsible for arranging and delivering health and care services and others with a role in improving health and wellbeing. They are a key building block of the integrated care systems (ICSs) recently established across England and play an important role in co-ordinating local services and driving improvements in population health.
Quality assurance (QA) is an important process in ensuring that systematic reviews and other evidence syntheses are supported by a high-quality search. This paper describes how the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK established a development pathway to ensure its information specialists had the skills, knowledge and confidence to undertake search QA. The key component of the pathway is that it blends technical knowledge with interpersonal skills. The pathway develops technical skills in the early steps before using peer support activities to build confidence while undertaking a range of searches. QA is effective when the search lead communicates the contextual information that has influenced search development.
this paper presents a free and open-source Python package and an accompanying web-app, Paperfetcher, to automate the retrieval of article metadata for handsearching. With Paperfetcher’s assistance, researchers can retrieve article metadata from designated journals within a specified time frame in just a few clicks. In addition to handsearching, it also incorporates a beta version of citation searching in both forward and backward directions. Paperfetcher has an easy-to-use interface which allows researchers to download the metadata of retrieved studies as a list of DOIs or as an RIS file to facilitate seamless import into systematic review screening software. To the best of our knowledge, Paperfetcher is the first tool to automate handsearching with high usability and a multi-disciplinary focus.
Bit of a mishmash but the section on using AI in searching/synthesising results is interesting in terms of the way things are going - don't think there are any immediate actions here.
Results indicate that students were not able to accurately distinguish between credible sources of web-based health information and those sources that were previously categorized as not being credible sources. Analysis of self-reported qualitative feedback gave rise to 6 factors used to determine the accuracy of the websites reviewed. While students report using these factors, and these factors are consistent with previous research, this does not appear then to be translating to successful determination of a source’s accuracy
This paper outlines recent progress in developing accredited continuing professional development opportunities for NHS knowledge and library specialists with a focus on the development of digital and data skills.
The Health and Care Act 2022 and concurrent reforms to the public health system have introduced a range of changes and some simplifications to the landscape of national bodies in the health and care system.
Here, we explain the core functions of the national bodies with the most significant role in setting policy for and shaping the operation of the health and care system. We also look at how these organisations are held accountable for carrying out those functions and the extent to which central government can direct them.
Patient-facing vaccination literature had a Flesch Reading Ease score of 58.4 and a Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 8.1, in comparison with poorer readability scores for healthcare professional literature of 30.7 and 12.6, respectively. MMR scientific abstracts had the poorest readability (24.0 and 14.8, respectively). Sentence structure was also considered, where better readability metrics were correlated with significantly lower number of words per sentence and less syllables per word.
Useful section on most common reasons why searches were rejected - could be part of a checklist for when we're doing peer review. Added to Evidence Wiki.
This article outlines collaboration across Scotland and England to develop a core resource for eLearning on health literacy. It describes the development of the resource with case studies of the implementation in Scotland and England, demonstrating the balance between shared development and tailored implementation. The eLearning was developed to increase awareness of NHS workforce and community partners, supplemented by training for NHS librarians and public health specialists to enable them to provide more tailored training on health literacy techniques. (Already added to Evidence wiki)
Most participants looked for information about their mental health on the internet. Therefore, mental health professionals should consider how to facilitate professional-patient therapeutic communication, with acknowledged Internet use by individuals with chronic psychiatric disorders. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Examples of what is now possible is described, including service to user groups, successes, failures and challenges. Although technology advances have enabled library service enhancements to all user groups, special emphasis on new library services in support of the research enterprise is discussed.
The Health and Care Bill 2022 is an example of a public policy change that has specific implications in England, but also demonstrates the elements to look out for in new legislation as opportunities for health libraries and information services.
Generic adverse drug effects searches in medline and Embase achieved 90% and 89% relative recall, respectively. When specific adverse effects terms were added recall was improved.
Conclusion
We have derived and validated search filters that retrieve around 90% of records with adverse drug effects data in medline and Embase. The addition of specific adverse effects terms is required to achieve higher recall.
The results showed that although Google Scholar was the search engine with the highest capacity to retrieve selected articles, it was the least effective, compared with scientific search engines, at providing information on the retraction of articles. The use of different scientific search engines to retrieve as many scientific articles as possible, as well as never using only a generic search engine, is highly recommended. This will reduce the possibility of including retracted articles and will avoid affecting the reliability of the scientific studies carried out.