Doing a Systematic Review: A Student's Guide

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If you are new to searching health and medicine databases or would like a refresher, please listen to a Basic and Advanced recording of a search in CINAHL. The advanced recording covers using MESH or subject headings.

Is there enough evidence to conduct a systematic review? If you can only locate 2 research papers on your topic then a meaningful systematic review is unlikely. Consider looking at Connected Papers - a simple network analysis based on similarities between papers.

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Reference Management Software - Learn how to manage all the references you are going to find. (10.24) With a friendly, accessible style, the book covers every step of the systematic review process, from planning to dissemination. Alongside updated examples and case studies, this edition also includes two new chapters to help you write and register your review protocol and understand and synthesise data from correlational and experimental studies.

Completing a systematic review and unsure where to start or what path to take? Set out on your journey confidently with this practical guide written by a team of experienced academics. As this book is written by researchers working the field of health-related research, students of other disciplines might have to adapt to some of the more specific guidelines and jargon in the book. For example, the book relies on many literature examples featuring quantitative human subject research (e.g., surveys, experimental designs). This could be an obstacle to students interested in other methods, such as textual analysis (e.g., with regards to quality assessment, Chapter four). Overall, however, the book is clear and will be easily readable for students from a wide variety of disciplines. Include time to investigate the different databases and platforms that may cover your topic as you are likely to use more than one in your review. Also decide on what reference management software you are going to use. We support Endnotebut there are other options. Has a systematic review already been published on this? If yes, when? If it was more that 5 years ago then you might find enough new evidence to update the review.When you have completed your literature searches, you will want to remove any duplicate records and start to screen the results. You will be using your inclusion and exclusion criteria to select or exclude articles. You will need to keep a record of this process to enable you to produce the PRISMA flow diagram. This book will not only support you to overcome common challenges and pitfalls, it will give you the knowledge and skills to produce an excellent review and you might even enjoy the journey! platform/Medline databaseusing keywords and Thesaursus/MESH headings - "belt and braces"approach (3.04)