Table 1 PubMed Search Strategy

 #1

“Breast Neoplasms”[Majr] OR breast neoplasm*[Title] OR breast cancer*[Title] OR breast carcinoma*[Title] OR breast tumor*[Title] OR breast tumour*[Title] OR mammary cancer*[Title] OR mammary carcinoma*[Title] OR mammary neoplasm*[Title] OR mammary tumor*[Title] OR mammary tumour*[Title] OR “cancer of the breast”[Title] OR breast malignan*[Title] OR mammary malignan*[Title]

123,621

 #2

#1 AND ((“Quality of Life”[Majr] OR “quality of life”[Title] OR “life quality”[Title/Abstract] OR QoL[Title/Abstract] OR hrql[Title/Abstract] OR hrqol[Title/Abstract] OR “EORTC-QLQ-C30”[Title/Abstract] OR “FACT-B”[Title/Abstract]) NOT (“Quality-Adjusted Life Years”[Mesh] OR “quality adjusted life year”[Title] OR “quality adjusted life years”[Title] OR QALY[Title] OR health utilit*[Title] OR HUI[Title] OR “standard gamble”[Title] OR “time trade off”[Title] OR “time tradeoff”[Title] OR TTO[Title]))

2260

 #3

#2 AND (“Psychometrics”[Mesh] OR valid*[Text Word] OR reliable*[Text Word] OR reliability[Text Word] OR psychometric*[Text Word] OR (concurrent[Text Word] AND validity[Text Word]) OR (divergent[Text Word] AND validity[Text Word]) OR responsiveness[Text Word] OR responder*[Text Word] OR correlation coefficient*[Text Word] OR correlation co-efficient*[Text Word])

311

 #4

“Animals”[Mesh] NOT “Humans”[Mesh]

1,144,986

 #5

“Comment”[Publication Type] OR “Letter”[Publication Type] OR “Editorial”[Publication Type]

753,935

 #6

(#3 NOT (#4 OR #5))

310