131 - Medical Librarians Provide the Polish for High-Quality Dental Medicine Systematic Reviews

Objectives: Previous research on the effect of librarian involvement in systematic reviews (SRs) in internal medicine journals indicates that librarian involvement improves the reproducibility and methodological quality of published systematic reviews. No such study had examined the effect of librarian involvement in dental medicine systematic reviews. This study sought to elucidate the frequency with which librarians are involved in supporting dental medicine systematic reviews and the effect of librarian involvement on methodological quality and search reproducibility in those reviews.

Methods: We analyzed 913 SRs or meta-analyses in twelve high-impact journals from the field of dental medicine. We used a Modified PRESS instrument and a questionnaire about methodological reporting to determine the following:
involvement of librarians in SRs
reproducibility of searches
methodological quality of the SRs
overall quality of the search

Results: Librarian involvement was rare in our sample (2.5%), but was associated with better reporting of the search strategy. Of the articles with no librarian involvement, only half included a full search strategy. Subjective analysis of the quality of searches using a Likert scale from 1(low)-5(high) indicated that articles with a librarian co-author had a quality score of 3.5, while articles with a librarian acknowledged or not included received scores of 3.4 and 2.814, respectively. Only 452 articles were considered to have a reproducible search. Findings suggest that librarian involvement in dental SRs leads to more reproducible searches and improved reporting.

Conclusions: Librarians are underrepresented in SR teams based in dental medicine disciplines. The inclusion of a librarian in SR teams in dental medicine improves key methodological features of SRs as well as search quality. Efforts should be made to consult a librarian and include them as a co-author or acknowledge them in the article for their assistance in crafting sensitive, reproducible searches and for their knowledge of SR methodology and reporting standards. Medical librarian search strategies are not immune from mistakes; this underlines the importance of utilizing Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategy (PRESS) to guard against natural, human error.