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Systematic Review Process: How to Search

This guide will assist teammates and researchers at Advocate Health - Midwest who are seeking information on and instructions for conducting systematic reviews.

Design Your Search Strategy

Searching for studies
In this step, you will design a comprehensive search strategy to capture most of the literature on your given topic. You can use your PICO as the starting point when brainstorming for terms to search. Once you have created your initial search, you will also want to decide which databases (e.g. PubMed, Embase, Cochrane) to search and translate your search for those databases.

PICO is a useful tool for developing search strategies to answer clinical questions.  

P I C O
Patient/Population Intervention Comparison Outcomes

What are the characteristics of the population? 

What is the condition or disease you are interested in?

 What do you want to do with this patient (e.g., treat, diagnose, observe)? What is the alternative to the intervention (e.g., placebo, different drug, surgery, gold standard? What are the relevant outcomes? What are you trying to accomplish, measure, improve, affect (e.g., morbidity, death, complications, timely diagnosis?

 

Once you search one database, you will want to try it in a different database. But it is not always a simple "copy and paste" from one database to the next.  Since databases are created by different entities, they may function in a similar fashion.  But each database may have unique functions that distinguish them from one another. The SR-Acclerator is a suite of tools which could be useful as you complete a systematic review. Polyglot search is one of the tools in this platform.  Polyglot will help you translate your search strategy from one database to the another.

Video: How to Use PICO to Refine Your Search

Additional Issues to Consider When Constructing Your Search

Some additional considerations as you formulate and conduct your search. 

Modify your search to ensure:

  • All concepts are included in the strategy
  • All appropriate subject headings are used
  • Appropriate use of explosion
  • Appropriate use of subheadings and floating subheadings
  • Use of natural language (text words) in addition to controlled vocabulary terms
  • Use of appropriate synonyms, acronyms, etc.
  • Truncation and spelling variation as appropriate
  • Appropriate use of limits such as language, years, etc.
  • Field searching, publication type, author, etc.
  • Boolean operators are used appropriately
  • Line errors are corrected: when searches are combined using line numbers, be sure the numbers refer to the searches intended
  • Check indexing of relevant articles
  • Search strategy adapted as needed for multiple databases

View our Effective Literature Searching guide for more information on building a search strategy. 

Searching Checklists

Checklists to improve search strategies:

Online Training for Database Searching

Sample training tools can be found at these sites:

** Please note that the library network for the Advocate Health -- Midwest Region does NOT subscribe to Embase.  However, you may have access from other institutions. Since it is a resource that is frequently recommended, you may want to learn how to conduct a search in this database.