Comprehensive & Systematic Reviews

Documenting each step of your systematic review is of the utmost importance. Be sure to document all the data you need to report your review according to the standards in the PRISMA Checklist. 

For the search process itself, the following things should be recorded to ensure that your searches are truly replicable:

• The databases the searches were run in. This should include the database (ex: MEDLINE) and the database provider (ex: Ovid). 
• The dates the searches were conducted.
• Who conducted the database searches.
• The full search strategies for each database.
• Information about any limits that were utilized, such as date or language limits.
• Information about whether the search was saved to a team members' account, and what name the search was saved as.
• The number of citations retrieved from each database before deduplicating.
• The total number of citations left after deduplicating.  

Conducting a systematic review involves keeping track of thousands of citations. We highly recommend using bibliographic software for this task. Bibliographic software helps organize citations, remove duplicate citations from your database searches, and can help you once you begin writing your final report by formatting your in text citations and bibliography. 

Examples of bibliographic software programs include EndNote, Zotero, and Mendeley. 

Learn more about..

• Purchasing, Installing and Getting Support for EndNote X8
• Comparing EndNote, Zotero, and Mendeley

There are software programs (both free and proprietary) available that can assist your team in screening citations, extracting data, and aggregating data. A searchable database of these programs is available from "The Systematic Review Toolbox," linked below. 

You should utilize a standardized form or spreadsheet for data extraction. Some example templates are below.