Systematic searches for the effectiveness of respite care.

Evidence-based assessment of the effectiveness of interventions is increasingly being adopted in disciplines beyond medicine [1, 2], and a particular area of interest is social care (care that helps people with daily living, personal care, and independence) [3–5]. The resulting increase in the demand for systematic reviews of the effectiveness of social care interventions [1, 2, 6] is challenging for systematic reviewers, particularly regarding how to best identify appropriate evidence for inclusion [1–4, 7–8]. A range of databases can provide evidence on the effectiveness of social care interventions [1, 2, 9], including general medical databases (e.g., EMBASE and MEDLINE) and the increasing number of databases available that focus on social care (e.g., Sociological Abstracts and Social Services Abstracts). Systematic literature searches of the evidence in this field are problematic for two reasons: the optimal number and combination of databases is unknown [1–4, 7–9] and the creation of combinations of search terms that retrieve all the relevant references is difficult [1, 2]. The selection of search terms in social care topics is also problematic due to variations in the terminology used, the country of origin, and changes over time [1]. For example, although the term “carer” is often used in the United Kingdom, terms such as “caregiver” or “caretaker” are used in the United States. In addition, phrases such as “children caring for their elderly relatives” or “husbands supporting their wives” can be substituted for “carer.” The use of different definitions of “carers” can also impact the searching process. For example, some definitions include paid workers, while others include only volunteers. To identify papers relating to paid caregivers terms such as “health personnel,” “care worker,” or “health care assistant” may be appropriate, while for volunteers terms such as “neighbor,” “friend,” or “spouse” are more appropriate. With a wide range of potentially useful databases and a lack of standardized terminology, searching a large number of databases with broad search strategies encompassing many variants of the terminology seems the most effective way to ensure identification of most of the relevant studies. However, this approach may also retrieve large numbers of irrelevant records. The aim of this study was to ascertain the relative contributions of a range of potentially useful databases and other sources for identifying evidence for a systematic review of social care.