A systematic review is a rigorous approach to identifying, appraising, and synthesizing all empirical evidence that meets pre-defined eligibility criteria to answer a specific research question. Researchers conducting systematic reviews use explicit methods designed to minimize bias, resulting in more reliable findings that can inform decision-making (Cochrane Library). When these reviews involve the use of quantitative techniques to combine and analyze data from multiple independent studies, the process is known as a meta-analysis.
MEDLINE provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. Created by the National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing with tree, tree hierarchy, subheadings and explosion capabilities to search citations from over 5,400 current biomedical journals.
The most frequently used resource in The Cochrane Library is the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. This database contains the full text of all Cochrane reviews (widely considered to be the gold standard of systematic reviews).
After running your search, click on the "Cochrane Reviews" checkbox in the left sidebar. Any results from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews will be displayed. All of these should have full text available.
If you would like to view other systematic reviews, click on the "Other Reviews" checkbox. Search results from the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects will be displayed. These are summaries/critical appraisals of non-Cochrane systematic reviews.
If you identify any non-Cochrane systematic reviews that you would like to retrieve, you will probably need to take the journal information down and look for the issue (if we have a subscription) through our Periodicals List.
In CINAHL go to Limit Your Results from the Advanced Search screen:
The limiters screen is also accessible from the results page by clicking on Show More in the left sidebar:
PUBLICATION TYPE: Select Systematic Review or Meta Analysis.
In Medline (EBSCO) go to Limit Your Results from the Advanced Search screen:
The limiters screen is also accessible from the results page by clicking on Show More in the left sidebar:
PUBLICATION TYPE: Select Meta-Analysis
SUBJECT SUBSET: Select Systematic Reviews
You may apply filters in PubMed after running a search. Click on one or more filters to include those attributes. The filters are located in the left sidebar:
ARTICLE TYPE: Select Meta-Analysis or Systematic Reviews.
Another option is to try the Clinical Queries search. Access Clinical Queries by clicking on the link from the main PubMed search page:
Type your search string. Systematic reviews will appear in the middle column.
The TRIP Database is a UK-based meta-search engine for clinical evidence. After typing in your search, you may apply filters (from the right sidebar) for different types of information, including Systematic Reviews.
Please note that this is an open-access (free) database, so if you identify any articles you would like to retrieve, you may need to note the citation information and search our Periodicals.
