Subject Guides: Systematic Reviews: Searching

Searching in Systematic Reviews

In Systematic Reviews, the searching process involves following a methodology that is strict, sensitive, and replicable. The aim is to find every article that meets your pre-defined eligibility criteria.

Key Databases

Core Databases
Specialist Databases

The following are commonly considered the core databases to search when undertaking a Systematic Review.

Based on: Bramer, W. M., Rethlefsen, M. L., Kleijnen, J., & Franco, O. H. (2017). Optimal database combinations for literature searches in systematic reviews: a prospective exploratory study. Systematic Reviews, 6(1), 245.

Consult with a librarian to choose the relevant databases for your project.

Embase
Embase is a biomedical literature database providing 37.2+ million records from over 8,100 journals, ‘grey literature’ from 3.6+ million conference abstracts, and unique non-English content and coverage.
Medline
Medline contains 23 million of the latest bibliographic citations and author abstracts from more than 5,600 biomedicine and life sciences journals in nearly 40 languages. English abstracts are included in more than 80% of the records.
Google Scholar
The 200 first relevant references (Bramer et al. 2017)
Pubmed
Comprises more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature from Medline, life science journals, and online books.

Specialist Databases

Depending on your topic, you may need to search additional specialist databases such as:

APA PsycINFO
For psychology and psychiatry topics
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Cochrane Reviews are systematic reviews of primary research in human health care and health policy and are internationally recognized as the highest standard in evidence-based health care.
Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL)
For nursing and allied health topics
Health Business Elite
For health administration and management topics
Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI)
JBI covers a wide range of medical, nursing, and health science specialties, and includes a unique suite of information that’s been analysed, appraised, and prepared by expert reviewers at JBI.
Maternity & Infant Care Database (MIDIRS)
For maternity and midwifery topics

Tools & Resources for Systematic Review Searching

Automation Tools

PubMed ReMiner
PubMed ReMiner is data mining system that can help you identify common words and phrases in search results to help build your search strategy.
Systematic Review Accelerator
a suite of tools to speed up steps in the Systematic Review process. Free registration
TERA Tools - Polyglot
The Polyglot Search Translator or simply, the Polyglot, translates search strings across databases including Medline, Embase, Pubmed and more.

AI for Systematic Reviews: Searching

Running full Systematic Review searches in AI search tools?

There are many AI research tools that can be useful for searching, however given the strict methodology of the Systematic Review process, there are some important reasons why it is not advisable to use AI searching tools to run the full Systematic Review searches.

A key requirement of a Systematic Review is that the protocol is reproducible. AI search tools are not capable of generating identical search results, therefore searches done in AI search tools cannot be reproduced reliably.
AI tools are limited in their ability to correctly identify subject headings such as MeSH terms, and are completely unable to identify Emtree headings.
AI tools are limited in their ability to correctly identify the key concepts from a research question.

Because of this, NSLHD Libraries do not advise using AI search tools to run a systematic review search. However, there are other ways where it may be appropriate to use AI tools during the Systematic Review process.

Citation searching

In Systematic Reviews, it is required that you conduct a citation search, in which you investigate all studies citing and cited by the studies you have found. It is best practice to carry out backwards and forwards citation searching on all studies found that meet the eligibility criteria through two citation databases.

See: Guidance on Terminology, Application, and Reporting of Citation Searching: the TARCIS Statement

There are many AI tools that can make the citation searching process easier by mapping citations within indexes, including:

Consensus
Elicit
Inciteful
Lens.org
and more.

See our Literature Search and Mapping Tools in our AI in Research guide for more information on each tool.

Systematic Reviews

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Searching in Systematic Reviews

Key Databases

Tools & Resources for Systematic Review Searching

AI for Systematic Reviews: Searching

Further Reading - AI Search Tools