title: Enhancing search efficiency by means of a search filter for finding all studies on animal experimentation in PubMed.
abstract: Collecting and analysing all available literature before starting an animal experiment is important and it is indispensable when writing a systematic review (SR) of animal research. Writing such review prevents unnecessary duplication of animal studies and thus unnecessary animal use (Reduction). One of the factors currently impeding the production of 'high-quality' SRs in laboratory animal science is the fact that searching for all available literature concerning animal experimentation is rather difficult. In order to diminish these difficulties, we developed a search filter for PubMed to detect all publications concerning animal studies. This filter was compared with the method most frequently used, the PubMed Limit: Animals, and validated further by performing two PubMed topic searches. Our filter performs much better than the PubMed limit: it retrieves, on average, 7% more records. Other important advantages of our filter are that it also finds the most recent records and that it is easy to use. All in all, by using our search filter in PubMed, all available literature concerning animal studies on a specific topic can easily be found and assessed, which will help in increasing the scientific quality and thereby the ethical validity of animal experiments.
authors.affiliation: Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Central Animal Laboratory and 3R Research Centre, Geert Grooteplein Noord 29, Route 231, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. C.Hooijmans@cdl.umcn.nl
authors.forename: Carlijn R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Hooijmans
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tillema
authors.forename: Marlies
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leenaars
authors.forename: Merel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ritskes-Hoitinga
mesh_terms: D000043:Abstracting and Indexing / Q000379:methods; D032761:Animal Experimentation; D023401:Animal Use Alternatives; D000827:Animal Welfare; D000818:Animals; D000830:Animals, Laboratory; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D039781:PubMed; D012196:Review Literature as Topic; D057386:Search Engine / Q000379:methods*