Illustrative review of reporting practices in titles and abstracts

Version 4. Additional File 1

Search Strategy

MEDLINE (1948 to March Week 3 2011)

Embase (1980 to 2011 Week 11)

Ovid multifile search: http://shibboleth.ovid.com/

1.  exp Clinical Trials as Topic/ use mesz

2.  clinical trial/ use emez

3.  Randomized Controlled Trial/

4.  randomized controlled trial.pt.

5.  randomization/ use emez

6.  random$.ti,ab.

7.  control group/ use emez

8.  (control adj3 group$).ti,ab.

9.  attention control.ti,ab.

10.  Placebos/ use mesz

11.  placebo/ use emez

12.  placebo$.ti,ab.

13.  or/1-12

14.  british medical journal.jn.

15.  bmj.jn.

16.  journal of the american medical association.jn.

17.  jama.jn.

18.  new england journal of medicine.jn.

19.  nejm.jn.

20.  lancet.jn.

21.  annals of behavio?ral medicine.jn.

22.  annals of behavio?ral medicine a publication of the society of behavio?ral medicine.jn.

23.  ann behav med.jn.

24.  or/14-23

25.  13 and 24

26.  limit 25 to yr="2009-current"

27.  (letter or review or comment or conference$ or editorial).pt.

28.  26 not 27

29.  (animals/ or nonhuman/) not humans/

30.  28 not 29

31.  remove duplicates from 30

32.  dt.fs.

33.  (14 or 15) and 31 and 32

34.  (16 or 17) and 31 and 32

35.  (18 or 19) and 31 and 32

36.  20 and 31 and 32

37.  ((14 or 15) and 31) not 32

38.  ((16 or 17) and 31) not 32

39.  ((18 or 19) and 31) not 32

40.  (20 and 31) not 32

41.  (or/21-23) and 31

Sampling Calculations

Proportional sampling calculation: Number sampled= (number of papers retrieved for each journal-intervention type combination/total papers retrieved by strategy) x 210*

Journal (intervention type) / Calculation / Number of papers to be sampled
BMJ (PI) / (126/1250) x 210 = 21.168 / 21
JAMA (PI) / (57/ 1250) x 210 = 9.576 / 10
NEJM (PI) / (261/1250) x 210 = 43.848 / 44
Lancet (PI) / (125/1250) x 210 = 21 / 21
BMJ (NPI) / (234/ 1250) x 210 = 39.312 / 39
JAMA (NPI) / (171/1250) x 210 = 28.728 / 29
NEJM (NPI) / (97/ 1250) x 210 = 16.296 / 16
Lancet (NPI) / (142/1250) x 210 = 23.856 / 24
ABM / (37/1250) x 210 = 6.216 / 6

ABM = Annals of Behavioral Medicine; BMJ = British Medical Journal; JAMA = Journal of the American Medical Association; NEJM = New England Journal of Medicine; NPI = Non-pharmacologic intervention; PI = Pharmacologic intervention

* 210 = target number of papers for inclusion in review

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