Validation of a Search Strategy for Randomized Clinical Trials Related to Periodontitis

Abstract Background: Systematic reviews, considered the gold standard for the assessment of scientific evidence, may present conflicting findings for the same clinical issue, and such dissent may be justified, for example, by the forms of elaboration of the electronic search strategy. The aim of this paper is to validate a search strategy to identify randomized clinical trials related to periodontitis. Results: The search strategy under evaluation compared to the gold-standard showed a sensitivity of 93.2% (95%CI, 83.8-97.3), specificity of 99.9% (95%CI 99.8-99.9) and a precision of 77.5% (95%CI, 66.48-85.63). In addition, the needed number of articles to read was 1.3. Conclusion: According to the proposed methodological approach, the search strategy under evaluation performed well in the identification of randomized clinical trials related to periodontitis.