142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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299171
Screening titles/abstracts, reviewing full text, and reporting results

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Saturday, November 15, 2014 : 2:50 PM - 3:30 PM

Helena M. VonVille, MLS, MPH , Library, University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston, TX
Screening is an elimination process that is done through the review of article titles and abstracts to determine if the study described meets any of the exclusion criteria. Exclusion criteria are developed based on the systematic review aims and objectives; each title and abstract is read and judged based on those criteria.  If the title/abstract meet a single exclusion criterion, it is eliminated.  Unfortunately, the potential for bias is high if the screeners are not blinded to article authors or journal titles and they are unduly influenced by either or both.  Additionally, there are many elements that need to be tracked resulting in the potential for inaccurate data.  Full text article review, on the other hand, is both an inclusion and an exclusion process.  Each article is reviewed to determine if the study it describes contains the elements required by the aims and objectives of the systematic review. Lastly, key elements must be reported on in the methods section and the results section of a systematic review.  Brevity is essential to ensure that the space required for analysis and discussion are not unduly impacted upon by the methods section. 

During this portion, participants will have an opportunity to work through the process of developing exclusion criteria based on aims, recording the exclusion criteria in the Excel systematic review workbook, and screening a small set of titles/abstracts. Participants will pair up to calculate Cohen's kappa and report on their findings based on published guidelines.

Learning Areas:

Other professions or practice related to public health
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Identify eligibility criteria based on aims; Demonstrate the ability to add data critical for reporting to an Excel workbook; Create a PRISMA flowchart based on the data; List the elements of the search process that go in the Methods portion of the paper. List the elements of the search process that go in the Results portion of the paper.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have an MLS from Rutgers University and an MPH from the University of Texas Health Science Center-- Houston. I have co-taught a graduate course on systematic reviews for 6 years in which I am responsible for lectures on developing comprehensive search strategies, critical elements to incorporate into the methods section, and utilizing an Excel workbook for tracking results and screening titles and abstracts.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.