Unlike other types of reviews " a systematic review attempts to collate all the empirical evidence that fits prespecified eligibility criteria in order to answer a specific research question. It uses explicit, systematic methods that are selected with a view to minimizing bias, thus providing more reliable findings from which to draw conclusion and make decisions."
Higgins, J. (ed.) (2019) Cochrane Handbook for systematic reviews of interventions. p.4
1. Determine the need for a systematic review on your topic based on your PICO question.
2. Find your team : A Systematic Review with or without meta- analysis requires team members with different types of experience:
3. Consider your time frame. With a well organized plan in place, a systematic review can take anywhere from a year to 18 months to complete.
4. Consider publishing requirements Will you be able fulfill the requirements for Systematic Reviews?
A Protocol is a detailed planning document that describes the methodology you will use in detail. There are several resources/examples related to protocols that may be useful:
For consistency & to avoid bias, after the research question is developed but before your search is completed, your protocol should describe your criteria for determining eligibility of studies to be included in the review. For example, decide on :
| Date of publication | Languages | Study Design |
Intervention |
Outcome |
Setting | Publication Type |
|
A date range |
Only English? What other languages |
Which type of |
Include studies describing Exclude all others? |
Include studies |
GP surgery?
|
Exclude: |
Guides to Protocol Creation/Registration
For assistance with literature searching please visit our guide here
A flow chart that describes the screening of your search results is mandatory in a systematic review.
Once you have completed your literature searching & sorted all citations found, screening is the next step. The purpose of screening is to eliminate studies that do not meet your inclusion criteria. Two independent reviewers should screen all studies, starting with a title and abstract screening, followed by a full-text screening. A third reviewer should resolve any conflicts.
Start by title/abstract screening each reference. Each reviewer should read the title & abstract to decide:
During the full-text screening, for each reference, read the full-text and make a decision:
Voting on what should be included or excluded should be blinded. Team team members should not be able to see how others voted.
Once your literature search is complete, the studies retrieved must be organized by database in which they were found & deduplicated before the screening process begins. Most databases also enable you to download your search results to Excel or other spreadsheet software .This may be the best way to manage large search results files from several databases.Please contact the library if you need further assistance.
ProQuest Refworks is the bibliographic management software available free to all students and faculty suited to smaller research results management. It is also useful for creation of your final reference list for your systematic review. Please visit our guide here
It is a good idea to revisit the methodology & reporting guidance sources listed here as you write each section of your systematic review.
The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis by In addition to the methodology guides, use these recently update guides to correctly report what was done & what was found in the evidence gathered in your systematic review.