RLO: Steps in conducting a systematic review

Sections

Introduction
Step One - Formulating a question
Step Two - Conduct a search
Step Three - Assess the quality
Step Four - Summarise the evidence
Step Five - Interpret the findings
Activity
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Resources

Step Two

Step two is to conduct a thorough search for relevant studies.

You need to generate lists of citations from relevant resources.

Some databases you can use to search include:

EMBASE (biomedical literature)
MEDLINE
Science Citation Index
PsycInfo (psychology literature)
CENTRAL (The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials)
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature)
NHS EED
MIDIRS (available to obstetricians, midwives and consumers)
Conference Papers Index
Research Registers
SIGLE

The citations identified then need to be screened for relevance to the review question. Full manuscripts need to be obtained for potentially all relevant studies.

The third stage is to sift through the papers to decide on whether to include these in the review or exclude them. This will be done based on explicit study selection criteria. Some studies will provide reference citations, and the cycle of obtaining manuscripts and examining them for relevance will go on.