A nursing qualitative systematic review required MEDLINE and CINAHL for study identification.
OBJECTIVE
Analyze the number and the relevance of references retrieved from CINAHL, MEDLINE, and EMBASE to perform a nursing systematic review.


METHODS
A search strategy for the review topic was designed according to thesaurus terms. The study analyzes (1) references with abstract, (2) overlap between databases, (3) reference relevance, (4) relevance agreement between experts, and (5) reference accessibility.


RESULTS
Bibliographic search retrieved 232 references: 16% (37) in CINAHL, 68% (157) in MEDLINE, and 16% (38) in EMBASE. Of these, 72% (164) were references retrieved with an abstract: 14% (23) in CINAHL, 70% (115) in MEDLINE, and 16% (26) in EMBASE. Overlap was observed in 2% (5) of the references. Relevance assessment reduced the number of references to 43 (19%): 12 (34.3%) in CINAHL, 31 (19.7%) in MEDLINE, and none in EMBASE (Z=-1.97; P=.048). Agreement between experts achieved a maximum Cohen's kappa of 0.76 (P < .005). References identified in CINAHL were the most difficult to obtain (chi(2)=3.9; df=1; P=.048).


CONCLUSIONS
To perform a quality bibliographic search for a systematic review on nursing topics, CINAHL and MEDLINE are essential databases for consultation to maximize the accuracy of the search.
Subirana
Mireia
M
Epidemiology and Public Health Department, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Sant Antoni Maria Claret 171, 08041 Barcelona, Spain. msubirana@santpau.es
Solá
Ivan
I
Garcia
Josep M
JM
Gich
Ignasi
I
Urrútia
Gerard
G
D015706:Bibliometrics; D015400:Clinical Nursing Research / Q000379:methods*; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic; D006801:Humans; D016239:MEDLINE; D015401:Nursing Administration Research / Q000379:methods*; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D012196:Review Literature as Topic; D016526:Workload