Search strategies to identify reports on "off-label" drug use in EMBASE.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Medications are frequently prescribed outside their regulatory approval (off-label) by physicians particularly where appropriate therapies are not available. However, the risk/benefit ratio of drugs in off-label use needs to be critically appraised because it may differ from approved on-label usage. Therefore, an extensive exploration of current evidence on clinical data is well-advised. The objective of this study was to develop a search strategy that facilitates detection of the off-label drug use documents in EMBASE via OvidSP.

Methods

We constructed two sets of gold standards from relevant records to off-label drug use by a sensitive search of MEDLINE and EMBASE. Search queries, including search words and strings, were conceived based on definition of off-labe

SUBMITTER: Mesgarpour B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3543848 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature