MECIR Standard C.34: "Use specially designed and tested search filters where appropriate including the Cochrane Highly Sensitive Search Strategies for identifying randomized trials in MEDLINE, but do not use filters in pre-filtered databases e.g. do not use a randomized trial filter in CENTRAL."
Rationale: "Inappropriate or inadequate search strategies may fail to identify records that are included in bibliographic databases. Search filters should be used with caution. They should be assessed not only for the reliability of their development and reported performance, but also for their current accuracy, relevance and effectiveness given the frequent interface and indexing changes affecting databases."
The websites below collect search filters, also called search hedges, for use by expert searchers. Please note that filters found on those website, or event those published in peer-review journal articles, might not have been validated.
The Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews requires searches be rerun and new studies be incorporated, if the original searches were performed more than 12 months prior to the intended date of publication. Refer to section 4-4-10 for the exact requirements and rationale.
The most accurate method of updating your searches is to rerun the searches as designed (i.e. without adjusting for dates) and then deduplicate the results in a citation management software before screening. The following are some examples of how this can be done.
There may be legitimate reason to use a faster, albeit less accurate, method of updating your searches. Librarians at McGill Library have developed database-specific strategies using index and entry dates, rather than publication dates. Keep in mind that, while these strategies attempt to be fairly sensitive, the only way to guarantee accuracy is to use the strategy outlined above.