Searching for Systematic Reviews & Evidence Synthesis: Home

Systematic reviews are carried out by a large number of staff and students at King's College London and King's Health Partners across the disciplines. This guide aims to assist you in understanding more about how to effectively and systematically search for literature to include in your systematic review. The main focus is on searching for content to include in systematic reviews carried out in health and clinical and life sciences, but some specific links and guidance are also available for searching for systematic reviews of social interventions and other qualitative research areas in health and the social sciences. 

Other kinds of evidence synthesis (e.g. scoping, umbrella, mixed methods, integrative and rapid reviews) can all require the same kind of detailed search strategy to be created and reported so this library guide will also contain applicable information for these. If you are uncertain which kind of review is suitable for your question and which to find out more about the strengths and limitations of each see:

• Grant, M.J. and Booth, A. (2009), A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26: 91-108. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x
• Munn, Z., Peters, M.D.J., Stern, C. et al. Systematic review or scoping review? Guidance for authors when choosing between a systematic or scoping review approach. BMC Med Res Methodol 18, 143 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-018-0611-x

You could also use the Right Review tool linked below.

Performing a high quality electronic search of information resources ensures the accuracy and completeness of the evidence base used in your review. It is essential to get this searching element right otherwise your results will potentially be biased/missing crucial evidence. To be successful you will need to be looking for the evidence in the right places, matching your topic to the resources you are searching and, as far as possible leaving no stone unturned. Spending time on the search part of the systematic review is very important.

"Incomplete reporting of the literature search methods can introduce doubt and diminish trust in the final systematic review conclusions. If researchers are unable to understand or reproduce how information was gathered for a systematic review, they may suspect the authors of having introduced bias into their review by not conducting a thorough or pre-specified literature search."
Rethlefsen, M.L., Kirtley, S., Waffenschmidt, S. et al. PRISMA-S: an extension to the PRISMA Statement for Reporting Literature Searches in Systematic Reviews. Syst Rev 10, 39 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-020-01542-z

"Systematic reviews attempt to bring the same level of rigour to reviewing research evidence as should be used in producing that research evidence in the first place and should be based on a peer-reviewed protocol so that they can be replicated if necessary ...

High quality systematic reviews seek to:

• Identify all relevant published and unpublished evidence*
• Select studies or reports for inclusion
• Assess the quality of each study or report
• Synthesise the findings from individual studies or reports in an unbiased way
• Interpret the findings and present a balanced and impartial summary of the findings with due consideration of any flaws in the evidence."

Source: Hemingway, P. and Brereton, N. (2009) What is a systematic review?, What is...? series [online]. URL: http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/painres/download/whatis/Systreview.pdf [accessed 01.12.15; no longer accessible at stated URL 17.11.16].

*All our emphasis; the content of this library guide focuses on how to search for and identify the evidence to be included in systematic reviews.

The Cochrane Collaboration sets out eight stages of doing a systematic review:

It is important to consider whether you are undertaking a full systematic review or are instead being asked to complete a systematic literature review (which may be more limited in scope). A full systematic review aims to comprehensively identify, evaluate and integrate the findings of all relevant studies on a particular research question. A systematic literature review is more selective but implies a rigorous and structured search strategy, without necessarily attempting to include all available research on a particular topic.

Whilst much of the information included in this guide will be relevant for those undertaking systematic literature reviews (as opposed to a systematic review) you may wish to discuss with your supervisor the scope of the review you are being asked to complete and whether you need to be as comprehensive as a full systematic review would demand. For example, are you expected to include both published and unpublished material (conference papers, RCT trial databases, PhD theses)? Are you being guided to only search in a restricted number of databases? Have you been told to only include a specific number of results? Or advised to limit by date or language purely to restrict numbers of results? Often time is a major limitation to the systematic literature review (e.g. undertaken as part of an undergraduate or MSc course) and so limits have to be placed, particularly on the number of articles to be appraised.

You will still be able to undertake a high quality systematic literature review if any of the above apply but it is worth bearing in mind when you start your review in case some of the guidance included in this library guide is not necessary for you to follow. When writing up your review you could consider whether any of these decisions could be considered a limitation to the research you have conducted and perhaps what further research should include to improve the quality and check the validity of the results.

The material in these guides is licensed under: 

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA

Find out more at the Creative Commons:

Attend this drop-in for King's College London staff and students if you would like to discuss your search strategy or database query with a librarian or have any questions about the advanced searching skills required when undertaking a systematic review. 

The drop-in will be held on a website called Gather. There is no need to book your place, but please be aware that Gather has a limit of 10 attendees so if at first you are denied entry, please try again a few minutes later as someone may have left.

See the workshops schedule to find out more:

We have created a comprehensive e-learning pathway to support you to develop the advanced searching skills for systematic reviews. To find the course, click the link to KLaSS below and look for Finding Academic Material for Advanced Health Topics. This e-learning module also describes how to book onto our 2 hour webinar LIB261 Search Techniques for Systematic Reviewers.

Systematic reviews may examine quantitative or qualitative evidence. In the past systematic reviews were predominantly medical and often with a narrowly defined focus. Increasingly systematic reviews are attempting to deal with much broader topics, including topics allied to medicine but also topics outside of medicine. It is becoming more common in certain disciplines to see two or more types of evidence included and appraised and this is often called a mixed-method systematic review.

The guidance for systematic review methodology promoted by the Cochrane Library is focused very much on quantitative methods and may not be suitable for those undertaking a qualitative systematic review where a meta-ethnography is the aim as opposed to a meta-analysis. However the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) group have produced a ⁠Qualitative Evidence Synthesis template. More information on this and also other supplemental guidance on reviewing qualitative and implementation evidence is available on the ⁠Cochrane Qualitative & Implementation Methods Group page

There is much discussion as to whether a qualitative systematic review should aim to include a comprehensive literature search in the same way as is required for quantitative systematic reviews. It may be that "while it is certainly important for the search process to be free from bias, it is more important that the search process be systematic, explicit and reproducible rather than comprehensive. Thoroughness in this context should apply to the rigour of the search process not its comprehensiveness" (Booth, 2001).

Booth (2001) suggests that literature searching for qualitative systematic reviews should exhibit the following characteristics:

a) Identifying major "schools of thought" in a particular area whilst being alert to the identification of variants, minority views and dissenters. It is particularly important to identify negative or disconfirming cases.

b) Searching within a broad range of disciplines so as to bring different views (e.g. clinician, consumer, manager, health economist, statistician, research commissioner, etc.) to bear on the topic in hand.

c) Using complementary electronic and manual search techniques to ensure that materials are not missed either through the inadequacies of indexing or through selective coverage of databases.

Booth, A. (2001), 'Cochrane or cock-eyed? How should we conduct systematic reviews of qualitative research?' In Qualitative Evidence-based conference: Taking a critical stance, Coventry University. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001724.htm 

The JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis has a chapter on 'Systematic reviews of qualitative evidence' which aims "to provide the rationale, methodology and methods for meta aggregation as an approach to qualitative synthesis". 
Lockwood C, Porritt K, Munn Z, Rittenmeyer L, Salmond S, Bjerrum M, Loveday H, Carrier J, Stannard D. Chapter 2: Systematic reviews of qualitative evidence. In: Aromataris E, Munn Z (Editors). JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. JBI, 2020. Available from  https://synthesismanual.jbi.global.   https://doi.org/10.46658/JBIMES-20-03

The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) is the leading resource for systematic reviews in health care.

The Cochrane Collaboration are often described as the gold standard producer of systematic reviews. They provide guidance on how a systematic review (of an intervention or DTA) should be carried out, including a detailed section on the searching element.

• Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions 

  • 4.S1 Technical Supplement to Chapter 4: Searching for and selecting studies

• Cochrane Handbook for Diagnostic Test Accuracy (DTA) Reviews

The Campbell Collaboration is an international research network that produces systematic reviews of the effects of social interventions in Crime & Justice, Disability, Education, International Development, Knowledge Translation and Implementation, Nutrition, and Social Welfare. They promote positive social and economic change through the production and use of systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis for evidence-based policy and practice.

The Campbell Collaboration's Information Retrieval Methods Group has published a guide to information retrieval for systematic reviews: "Searching for studies: A guide to information retrieval for Campbell Systematic Reviews". This is based on the searching chapter within the Cochrane Handbook but adapted to suit the different subject area.

• Searching for studies: A guide to information retrieval for Campbell Systematic Reviews - Campbell methods guide 1

JBI is concerned with improving health outcomes in communities globally by promoting and supporting the use of the best available evidence to inform decisions made at the point of care. They focus on the translation of research evidence into practice, with researchers conducting systematic reviews that reflect a broad, inclusive approach to evidence and accommodate a range of diverse questions and study designs.

The JBI Reviewer's Manual provides guidance to authors for the conduct and preparation of JBI systematic reviews and evidence syntheses. The JBI Reviewer's Manual has separate chapters devoted synthesis of different types of evidence and to address different types of review questions. This includes guidance on different types of systematic reviews, mixed methods, umbrella reviews and scoping reviews.

Updated methodological guidance for the conduct of scoping reviews from JBI Evidence Implementation (Feb 2021):

Peters, Micah D.J.1,2,3; Marnie, Casey1; Tricco, Andrea C.4,5,6; Pollock, Danielle7; Munn, Zachary7; Alexander, Lyndsay8,9; McInerney, Patricia10,11; Godfrey, Christina M.6,12; Khalil, Hanan13,14 Updated methodological guidance for the conduct of scoping reviews, JBI Evidence Implementation: March 2021 - Volume 19 - Issue 1 - p 3-10
doi: 10.1097/XEB.0000000000000277 

The Cochrane rapid reviews team have recently produced the following updated search guidance (particularly for rapid reviews focussing on RCTs) which states "For RRs based on RCTs, use, at a minimum, a combination of two of these databases: MEDLINE, CENTRAL, Embase. In some cases, combining one of these databases (in particular MEDLINE) with an appropriate supplementary search method (eg, similar articles, study register searching) may suffice."

Klerings I, Robalino S, Booth A, Escobar-Liquitay CM, Sommer I, Gartlehner G, et al. Rapid reviews methods series: Guidance on literature search. BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. 2023 Apr 19;bmjebm-2022-112079. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjebm-2022-112079

Guidance for rapid reviews of qualitative evidence is expected later in 2023/24 and it is anticipated that this will suggest the use of Scopus rather than Medline as one of the key databases to search.