A guide prepared by Ms. S. Nalbandian targeted to outline some of the common types of reviews including literature, systematic, and scoping reviews, and lists some ways by which University Librarians can assist in conducting such reviews.
This module provides an overview of the steps that should be followed as far as searching for a systematic review.
A Systematic Review (SR) is a broad review of existing research on a topic that provides synthesis of the evidence from the collected studies to answer a specific question, to guide development of practice guidelines and inform future research.
SRs are gaining in popularity at medical research institutions across US & AUB and it is estimated that 11 SR are published daily, and take about 18 months to do and several people are involved as thousands of articles have to be assessed. The literature search which is the foundation of SR, takes an average of 6 weeks to develop.
Literature search has to balance between sensitivity & specificity and has to be comprehensive, efficient, up-to-date, and transparent.
So, it is highly recommended to involve a Medical/Health Sciences Librarian as poor search leads to low quality SR; which in turn affects clinical practice adversely; see "engaging medical/health sciences librarians to improve the quality of review articles".
Grant, M.J. and Booth, A. (2009), A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26: 91-108. doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x
Munn, Z., Stern, C., Aromataris, E., Lockwood, C., & Jordan, Z. (2018). What kind of systematic review should I conduct? A proposed typology and guidance for systematic reviewers in the medical and health sciences. BMC medical research methodology, 18(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-017-0468-4
First of all, check if a previous SR already exists or is in-progress using the below resources:
If one already exists, check if it is too old or of poor quality or of a different focus than what you plan. If SR already exists, look at recommendations for follow-up.
Now, if you decide to do a SR, consider registering the protocol in PROSPERO so it can be peer-reviewed and to reduce unnecessary duplication of effort among researchers.
If this is the first time you do a SR, familiarize yourself with:
Covidence: a subscription systematic review collaboration tool from a team of researchers in Australia. Another similar but free tool from Qatar Foundation is Rayyan. For more information see SR Toolkit.
Cochrane Priority Review List
If you want to do a systematic review in your field of specialization, and need a topic that best meets the needs of healthcare and health policy decision makers, we advise you to select a topic of interest from the Cochrane Priority Review List. This list contains either new titles or reviews requiring updates and is created by the Cochrane Editorial Unit.
Another place to check is AHRQ Funding Priorities.
Any good systematic review begins with a protocol outlining the study methodology. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a protocol serves as a road-map for the review and specifies the objectives, methods, and outcomes of primary interest of the systematic review. The purpose of having a protocol is to promote transparency of methods and reduce bias.
According to University of York the review protocol sets out the methods to be used: decisions about the review question, inclusion criteria, search strategy, study selection, data extraction, quality assessment, data synthesis and plans for dissemination.
If modifications to the protocol are required, these should be clearly documented and justified. Modifications may arise from a clearer understanding of the review question, and should not be made because of an awareness of the results of individual studies.
After you write the protocol, you should register it with PROSPERO, an International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews. Registration is free and open to anyone undertaking systematic reviews of the effects of interventions and strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor health conditions, for which there is a health related outcome. Cochrane protocols are automatically uploaded onto Prospero.
For more details BioMedCentral provides guidelines on publishing protocols.
Systematic reviews & meta-analyses are essential to summarize evidence relating to efficacy/safety of health-care interventions accurately and reliably, and poor reporting of SR diminishes their value to clinicians, policy makers...
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) is a standardized 27-item checklist and a 4-phase flow diagram, essential for transparent reporting and reproducibility. Two items from PRISMA apply to the search strategy reporting namely:
PRISMA item 7:
“Studies were identified by searching electronic databases, scanning reference lists of articles and consultation with experts in the field and drug companies. . . . No limits were applied for language and foreign papers were translated. This search was applied to Medline (1966-Present), CancerLit (1975-Present), and adapted for Embase (1980- Present), Science Citation Index Expanded (1981-Present) and Pre-Medline electronic databases. Cochrane and DARE (Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness) databases were reviewed. . . . The last search was run on 19 June 2001. In addition, we handsearched contents pages of Journal of Clinical Oncology 2001, European Journal of Cancer 2001 and Bone 2001, together with abstracts printed in these journals 1999-2001. A limited update literature search was performed from 19 June 2001 to 31 December 2003”.
PRISMA Item 8:
In text “We used the following search terms to search all trials registers and databases: immunoglobulin*; IVIG; sepsis; septic shock; septicaemia; and septicemia . . . ”
In appendix “Search strategy: MEDLINE (OVID)
Usually one starts with Medline (OVID) to develop the search strategy using MeSHes and keywords, and when final, then move to other resources using the same terminology or very similar one. In addition to health resources, SR topics may require use of non-health resources; such as the ones listed below. To decide which ones to choose depends on the particular question being addressed, along with availability/cost...
Embase / Cochrane Collaboration / CENTRAL / EconLit / CINAHL / LILACS / IMEMR / Global Index Medicus / POPLINE / PsycInfo / ERIC / AMED / Campbell Collaboration / Proquest Central / Scopus / Web of Science / Global Health / Health Services Research from PubMed…
For more information see Leeds Institute of Health Sciences: Finding Randomised Controlled Trials
If topic of interest involves drugs or devices, contact the company or manufacturer for unpublished studies available in their databases. For drugs also search:
For Medical Devices also seach:
PubMed Search Strategies blog aims to share by posting PubMed search strategies (created by international medical librarians) in the hope that others will benefit from the work already created.
To broaden the search strategy to increase number of hits, follow as many of the below tips as applicable:
It is recommended that you start searching Medline first, and after finalizing the search strategy with all the MeSH and keywords, the next step is to map that strategy into PubMed commands as shown below:
Citation Management Tools: AUB Libraries subscribe to below two citation management tools that require free registration at the start:
Visit the complete SML ABC guide on how to manage your references from the most important Medical, Nursing, and Public Health databases using Refworks, Endnote Web & Endnote Client.
Also check the following article: Kwon, Y., Lemieux, M., McTavish, J., & Wathen, N. (2015). Identifying and removing duplicate records from systematic review searches. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 103(4), 184–188. https://doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.103.4.004
It is very important that you apply transparent reporting of executed searches.
For databases document:
For non-database provide a brief summary of search method:
