Evidence Syntheses & Systematic Reviews: Search & Document

Planning

• Develop data management plan and file naming standards at outset.

Develop and Register Protocol

Best practice is to register your protocol (search question/plan) prior to conducting your Systematic Review. You may also search these registries to see if your review is currently underway.

• PROSPERO
• OSF Registries (see Evidence Synthesis Protocol Template for guidance on created a protocol)
• Zenodo
• CAMARADES SyRF
• OR publish it.
  • Campbell Collaboration
  • More examples in this article from DistillersR

Document Search

Important step that helps when writing up your report. 

• Resources searched 
  • Database and platform
  • Other resources
  • Other methods used
• Exact search string
  • Copy & paste 
• Date search was conducted
• Number of results
• Notes for self on search 

PRISMA Guidelines

• Use PRISMA for Systematic Reviews
• Use PRISMA-P for Systematic Review Protocols
• Use PRISMA-ScR for Scoping Reviews
• Use PRISMA Flow Diagram to report your search process. Also see PRISMA Diagram Generator

Keyword Generation - Brainstorming 

When generating keywords to search consider (in addition to known scientific terminology)

• Author supplied keywords
• Controlled Vocabulary
• British spelling
• Common misspellings
• Colloquial terminology
• Abbreviations

Keyword Generation - Tools

• Yale MeSH Analyzer 
• Voyant Tools - works best in Chrome

Citation Chaining

• Look through reference list of article of interest.
• Use resources to find more recent articles that cited article of interest.

Handsearching

• Search through journals from cover to cover.

Google

• Useful for finding government or professional reports.