Search Strategies for Systematic Review of Ear Disease & Ear Abnormalities

To identify studies to include or consider for this systematic review, the review team worked with a medical librarian to develop detailed search strategies for each database. The search was developed for PubMed (NLM) and was translated to Embase (Elsevier), Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics), CINAHL (EbscoHost), and Cochrane Central (Wiley) using a combination of keywords and subject headings. A grey literature search included ClinicalTrials.gov and the TRIP database. The search was limited to 1990 to current literature. [Authors will provide justification for date limitations]. The final search was completed on November 23, 2021. The full search details are provided in Appendix(___). PubMed (NLM) from 01/01/1990 to 11/23/2021 (3,240 Results) Embase (Elsevier) from 01/01/1990 to 11/23/2021 (10,526 Results) Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) from 01/01/1990 to 11/23/2021 (31 Results) CINAHL (EbscoHost) from 01/01/1990 to 11/23/2021 (1,108 Results) Cochrane Central (Wiley) from 01/01/1990 to 11/23/2021 (2 Results) The search resulted in 15,188 studies (281 from grey literature sources). 2,165 duplicate studies were found and omitted using Endnote 20 for the deduplication of records and 13,023 references were eligible to screen. Studies were screened by title and abstract by two blinded and independent reviewers. If a tiebreaker was needed, a third reviewer was called in. This process was repeated for full text article screening and article selection.