Table.

Results of various types of search

Search	No of articles identified	No of articles eligible in review	Unique articles identified	High quality articles*
Electronic databases
BIDS Science Citation Index	185	32	15	5
Medline	335	20	11	9
Embase	40	11	5	4
CINAHL	48	0	0	0
BIDS index to conference proceedings	32	0	0	0
GPLit	26	0	0	0
DHSS	18	0	0	0
PsychLit	10	0	0	0
Total No of articles	694	63	31	18
No of unique articles	581	50	31	15
Survey of expert network
Academics	297	37	20	7
Commercial organisations	43	4	3	2
Total No of articles	340	41	23	9
No of unique articles	338	40	23	9
Hand searching†
Abstracts	44	0	0	0
Reports	29	7	1	2
References	129	24	20	8
Total No of articles (all unique)	202	31	21	10
Overall results
Total citations identified	1236	135	75	37
Total unique references‡	1057	102	75	29

^*Eligible papers scoring 4 or 5 for methodology (one point was given for each of the following: an independent blind comparison to a reference standard; an appropriate spectrum of patients in the sample; reference standard performed on all patients; test methods described sufficiently to permit replication; likelihood ratios quoted). 

^†Limited hand search of published abstracts of international primary care meetings, and bibliographies of publications identified from above sources. 

^‡Excluding overlaps between the three search methods.