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Table 1 Number of articles identified when we applied the search strategy provided in Perman et al. [1] compared to that provided by our research librarian

From: Systematic review searches must be systematic, comprehensive, and transparent: a critique of Perman et al

Example of search strategy provided by Perman et al. [1]: conducted in Ovid MEDLINEa

Example of more comprehensive search strategy: conducted in Ovid MEDLINE

1. child*

2. adolescen*

3. school

4. exp. MASS VACCINATION

5. vaccination

6. 1 or 2

7. 4 or 5

8. 3 and 6 and 7

9. 8 with limits: Language (English), Publication Date (2000 to 2015)

10. Remove duplicates from 9

1. immunization/ or immunization schedule/ or vaccination/ or mass vaccination/

2. (immuniz* or immunis* or vaccinat*).ti, ab, kf.

3. 1 or 2

4. schools/ or school health services/ or school nursing/ or “journal of school health”.jn. or (school* or kindergarten).ti, ab, kf.

5. 3 and 4

6. limit 5 to (english language and yr. = “2000–2015”)

7. Remove duplicates from 6

Identified 1659 recordsb

Identified 2675 records

  1. aIt was unspecified which database interface was used to search in the NICE portal, however, based on the search terms used (which are consistent with Ovid syntax), we undertook our comparison using Ovid MEDLINE
  2. bWe postulate the higher number of articles found in this search compared to Perman et al. [1] (N = 1139 in Figure 1) may be because their search was completed by August 2015, whereas ours included up to Dec 31 2015, and we could not fully replicate their search via the NICE portal
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BMC Public Health

ISSN: 1471-2458

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