Table 2 Steps of the iterative algorithm to select articles until saturation of all candidate outcomes, with an example of the heart valve disease standardized set
Step | Description | Example HVD set |
|---|---|---|
1 | Define research goal | Identify all clinical outcomes used in HVD |
2 | Define inclusion and exclusion criteria for relevant articles | 1. Original research (retrospective, prospective, RCT, systematic review with meta-analysis) 2. Solely patients with heart valve disease (excluding the pulmonary valve) 3. Focus on clinical outcomes and case-mix variables 4. Conducted in humans |
3 | Conduct literature search (Table 1) | Yielded: 17,279 articles |
4 | Select 100 random articles | Random number generator corresponding to index number articles |
5 | Extract outcomes from initial randomly selected batch (100 articles) | 52 outcomes were identified (including results from benchmark review and data visualisation). |
6 | Extract outcomes from subsequent randomly selected batch (new 25 articles) | 4 new outcomes were identified |
7 | Repeat step 6 until no new outcomes are identified | In total 150 articles were reviewed |