Nursing - Systematic Reviews: Find SRs

Preparing Your Search

Before you start searching, you need to articulate several things so that you don't miss relevant studies, duplicate an existing SR, or collect biased results.

Step 1: Define your question.

• PICO format
• Avoid scope creep

Step 2: Check if there's already a recent SR on your question.

Step 3: Formulate your search strategy and inclusion/exclusion criteria.

• Databases you'll search
• Type(s) of studies
• Time period
• Language
• Publication type (Journals, grey literature, etc.)
• Geographic considerations

Step 4: Dress rehearsal search.

• Select a database to use
• Identify potential search terms (not every term will be in every article)
• Apply exclusion criteria (some you'll apply manually)
• Decide on the search terms and databases you'll use for your SR

Tip: If you've found too few results, try another database, a citation search or look at the methods section of a related SR.
Tip: If you've found too many results, add further limits (population, intervention, etc.)

Step 5: Document the search strategy.

• Start tracking your sources, search terms, limits and any other methods you've used to find literature
• Search history
• Number of results
• Duplicate results

Step 6: Logistics

• Pick a way to share/store files
• Pick a citation software (Zotero, Mendeley, etc.)

These are a few search strategies for as you start your process:

• Start with the best database (often Medline or CINAHL).
• Combine keywords and subject terms to expand your search results on a topic.
• Keep track of which results come from which search.
• Search one database at a time.
• Conduct citation searches on each article.
• Remember that everyone in your group will have a chance to evaluate the articles for inclusion/exclusion.
• Write and save your citations as you go!

Smart Searching in Google Scholar

Try "smart" searches in Google Scholar for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. (In addition to a MeSH-enhanced PubMed/Medline Search). Here are some examples of smart searching (Constantine Kaniklidis, 2014).

Sources

Constantine Kaniklidis [Username]. (2014, May 11). Google scholar for systematic reviews: What limit on search returns? [Question asked by Andrew Gilbey on March 25, 2014]. ResearchGate.net https://www.researchgate.net/post/Google_scholar_for_systematic_reviews_what_limit_on_search_returns