Identifying Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Search Terminology: A Systematic Review of Health Systematic Reviews

Research on the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations can provide important information to address existing health inequalities. Finding existing research in LGBT health can prove challenging due to the plethora of terminology used. We sought to describe existing searc...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2016-05, Vol.11 (5), p.e0156210-e0156210
Main Authors: Lee, Joseph G L, Ylioja, Thomas, Lackey, Mellanye
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Biology and Life Sciences
Bisexual
Bisexuality
Bisexuals
Coders
Female
Gays
Gays & lesbians
Health
Homosexuality, Female
Homosexuality, Male
Humans
Lesbians
Literature reviews
Male
Medicine and Health Sciences
MEDLINE
Meta-analysis
Minority Health
People and Places
Physical Sciences
Physiological aspects
Research and Analysis Methods
Research Design
Review Literature as Topic
Reviews
Search process
Social Sciences
Strings
Systematic review
Terminology
Terminology as Topic
Transgender Persons
Transsexualism
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Research on the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations can provide important information to address existing health inequalities. Finding existing research in LGBT health can prove challenging due to the plethora of terminology used. We sought to describe existing search strategies and to identify more comprehensive LGBT search terminology. We iteratively created a search string to identify systematic reviews and meta-analyses about LGBT health and implemented it in Embase, PubMed/MEDLINE, and PsycINFO databases on May 28-29, 2015. We hand-searched the journal LGBT Health. Inclusion criteria were: systematic reviews and meta-analyses that addressed LGBT health, used systematic searching, and used independent coders for inclusion. The published search terminology in each record and search strings provided by authors on request were cross-referenced with our original search to identify additional terminology. Our search process identified 19 systematic reviews meeting inclusion criteria. The number of search terms used to identify LGBT-related records ranged from 1 to 31. From the included studies, we identified 46 new search terms related to LGBT health. We removed five search terms as inappropriate and added five search terms used in the field. The resulting search string included 82 terms. There is room to improve the quality of searching and reporting in LGBT health systematic reviews. Future work should attempt to enhance the positive predictive value of LGBT health searches. Our findings can assist LGBT health reviewers in capturing the diversity of LGBT terminology when searching.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0156210