BestBETs for Vets literature searches
Two bibliographic databases, CAB Abstracts and MEDLINE, are searched for literature specifically relating to the BestBETs question of interest. These databases were chosen on the basis of our study on the coverage of veterinary journals by a range of databases.
• A set of search terms are developed based on the BET question. These incorporate different ways of expressing the topics/concepts we are interested in.
• The results from each search are filtered in a methodical way to include only relevant studies in the BET. This means studies will only be included if they directly address the clinical question and are a primary research study.
• We do not try and cover all the available databases, as this would be very time consuming and limit the number of BETs we can do. This means BETs may not contain all the relevant studies on a topic. However, the coverage of the veterinary literature by CAB Abstracts is very comprehensive, while MEDLINE includes very recently published articles.