BACKGROUND Systematic reviews are vital to the pursuit of evidence-based medicine within healthcare. Screening titles and abstracts (T&Ab) for inclusion in a systematic review is an intensive, and often collaborative, step. The use of appropriate tools is therefore important. In this study, we identified and evaluated the usability of software tools that support T&Ab screening for systematic reviews within healthcare research. METHODS We identified software tools using three search methods: a web-based search; a search of the online "systematic review toolbox"; and screening of references in existing literature. We included tools that were accessible and available for testing at the time of the study (December 2018), do not require specific computing infrastructure and provide basic screening functionality for systematic reviews. Key properties of each software tool were identified using a feature analysis adapted for this purpose. This analysis included a weighting developed by a group of medical researchers, therefore prioritising the most relevant features. The highest scoring tools from the feature analysis were then included in a user survey, in which we further investigated the suitability of the tools for supporting T&Ab screening amongst systematic reviewers working in medical research. RESULTS Fifteen tools met our inclusion criteria. They vary significantly in relation to cost, scope and intended user community. Six of the identified tools (Abstrackr, Colandr, Covidence, DRAGON, EPPI-Reviewer and Rayyan) scored higher than 75% in the feature analysis and were included in the user survey. Of these, Covidence and Rayyan were the most popular with the survey respondents. Their usability scored highly across a range of metrics, with all surveyed researchers (n = 6) stating that they would be likely (or very likely) to use these tools in the future. CONCLUSIONS Based on this study, we would recommend Covidence and Rayyan to systematic reviewers looking for suitable and easy to use tools to support T&Ab screening within healthcare research. These two tools consistently demonstrated good alignment with user requirements. We acknowledge, however, the role of some of the other tools we considered in providing more specialist features that may be of great importance to many researchers.

中文翻译：

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支持医疗保健系统评价的标题和摘要筛选的软件工具：评估。


背景系统评价对于医疗保健领域追求循证医学至关重要。筛选标题和摘要 (T&Ab) 以纳入系统评价是一个密集且通常是协作的步骤。因此，使用适当的工具非常重要。在这项研究中，我们确定并评估了支持 T&Ab 筛选的软件工具的可用性，以便在医疗保健研究中进行系统评价。方法 我们使用三种搜索方法来识别软件工具：基于网络的搜索；搜索在线“系统审查工具箱”；以及筛选现有文献中的参考文献。我们提供了在研究时（2018 年 12 月）可访问且可用于测试的工具，不需要特定的计算基础设施，并为系统评价提供基本的筛选功能。使用适合此目的的特征分析来识别每个软件工具的关键属性。该分析包括一组医学研究人员开发的权重，因此优先考虑最相关的特征。然后，将特征分析中得分最高的工具纳入用户调查中，在调查中，我们进一步调查了这些工具在从事医学研究的系统评价员中支持 T&Ab 筛查的适用性。结果 十五种工具符合我们的纳入标准。它们在成本、范围和目标用户群体方面存在很大差异。其中六种确定的工具（Abstrackr、Colandr、Covidence、DRAGON、EPPI-Reviewer 和 Rayyan）在功能分析中得分高于 75%，并被纳入用户调查。其中，Covidence 和 Rayyan 最受受访者欢迎。 它们的可用性在一系列指标上得分很高，所有接受调查的研究人员 (n = 6) 表示他们将来可能（或非常有可能）使用这些工具。结论 根据这项研究，我们将向系统评价人员推荐 Covidence 和 Rayyan，以寻找合适且易于使用的工具来支持医疗保健研究中的 T&Ab 筛查。这两个工具始终表现出与用户需求的良好一致性。然而，我们承认我们考虑的其他一些工具在提供更多专业功能方面的作用，这些功能对许多研究人员来说可能非常重要。