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Table 1 Definitions of general measures of performance in searches

From: Optimal database combinations for literature searches in systematic reviews: a prospective exploratory study

Recall

\( \frac{\#\mathrm{included}\ \mathrm{references}\ \mathrm{retrieved}\ \mathrm{by}\ \mathrm{a}\ \mathrm{database}/\mathrm{combination}}{\#\mathrm{included}\ \mathrm{references}\ \mathrm{retrieved}\ \mathrm{by}\ \mathrm{a}\mathrm{ll}\ \mathrm{database}\mathrm{s}} \)

Precision

\( \frac{\#\mathrm{included}\ \mathrm{references}\ \mathrm{retrieved}\ \mathrm{by}\ \mathrm{a}\ \mathrm{database}/\mathrm{combination}}{\#\mathrm{total}\ \mathrm{references}\ \mathrm{retrieved}\ \mathrm{by}\ \mathrm{those}\ \mathrm{database}\left(\mathrm{s}\right)} \)

Number Needed to Read

\( \frac{\#\mathrm{total}\ \mathrm{references}\ \mathrm{retrieved}\ \mathrm{by}\ \mathrm{a}\ \mathrm{database}/\mathrm{combination}}{\#\mathrm{included}\ \mathrm{references}\ \mathrm{retrieved}\ \mathrm{by}\ \mathrm{those}\ \mathrm{database}\left(\mathrm{s}\right)} \)