WHICH DATABASES SHOULD BE USED TO IDENTIFY STUDIES FOR SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS OF ECONOMIC EVALUATIONS?

Objectives: This study investigated which databases and which combinations of databases should be used to identify economic evaluations (EEs) to inform systematic reviews. It also investigated the characteristics of studies not identified in database searches and evaluated the success of MEDLINE search strategies used within typical reviews in retrieving EEs in MEDLINE.

Methods: A quasi-gold standard (QGS) set of EEs was collected from reviews of EEs.