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Description: Abstract Objectives: To create and validate topic search filters meant to retrieve residential care articles written in English and indexed in Pubmed and Social Care Online. Methods: A broad set of 95 English residential care structured literature reviews was selected. All studies analyzed within the reviews were manually extracted. Studies were screened for residential care data. Residential care studies were then searched in Pubmed and Social Care Online (SCO) to assess database coverage. The PubReminer tool was then used to suggest candidate search terms and MeSH for Pubmed whilst a simulator was used to build the SCO searches. Search sensitivity was assessed against the set of relevant records in Pubmed and in a simulator for SCO. Study design: Methodological study, diagnostic test study Results: A total of 1802 unique records were extracted from 89 reviews published from 2007 to 2021. 1063 (59.00%) studies were deemed to focus on residential care. Of the 1063 residential care studies analyzed within the 89 reviews 377 (35.46%) could be found on Pubmed and 383 (36.00%) on Social Care Online. 88 (8.28%) studies could be found on both Pubmed and Social Care Online. 391 (36.78%) studies could not be found on either Pubmed or SCO. 289 (27.19%) studies could be found on Pubmed only and 295 (27.75%) studies could be found on Social Care Online only. Pubmed and Social Care Online covered 63.22% of residential care studies. Four search filters were built, with sensitivities ranging from 82.22% to 95.30%. Limitations: Limitations include a geographic focus on US, EU and Australian contexts, studies mainly published between 2000 and 2021, limited use of advanced search functions and the future closure of SCO. Funding: No funding was received for this work. Registration and study protocol: See https://osf.io/myk6c/files/ Data and materials: See https://osf.io/myk6c/files/ Keywords: Children’s homes, residential care, electronic searches, systematic review, search filter, foster care