Systematic Reviews: Home

Preparation

• Time: 6-18 months to complete a systematic review
• Team: Minimum of 2-3 members to minimize bias.  Suggest including subject experts, librarians for help with search strategies, statisticians for help with data analysis
• Initial literature search: make sure no one else has published systematic review on the topic
   

Summary of the Process

1. Develop a clearly defined research question using PICO or similar tools  More info
2. Determine inclusion/exclusion criteria, such as: types of studies, minimum number of participants, ages, gender, language, or date restrictions
3. Write and register protocol to document methodology  More info
4. Develop a search strategy, test, then run in multiple databases. Search for additional articles in grey literature, registries, hand searching journals, and checking references in articles
5. Screen title/abstracts. First pass to select articles matching protocol criteria  
6. Obtain/read full text of articles that passed screening to determine eligibility.  Document reasons why articles are included/excluded
7. Analyze articles for data, quality, and bias
8. Write review and submit for publication

Services

• Conduct literature searches
• Document the search process
• Upload results into EndNote or Covidence
• Write search methodology section of paper

Request a Systematic Review

1. Complete our systematic review preparation form
2. Contact us to schedule a consultation

Acknowledgement / Authorship

• At minimum, an acknowledgement of the librarian's contribution to the systematic review is requested
• Co-authorship is requested if librarians write/edit parts of the paper

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