Here’s how Subject Librarians can help with your systematic review:

– Help formulate your PICO question

– Assist with developing search strategies across appropriate databases

– Provide advice on how to document the search for the methods section of your review

– EndNote support

– Research data management

Systematic reviews aim to find and evaluate all studies, published and unpublished, relevant to a research question. They use systematic methods to minimise bias and they also use transparent methods that allow for replication and verification

Key characteristics

• a clearly stated set of objectives with pre-defined eligibility criteria for studies;

• an explicit, reproducible methodology;

• a systematic search that attempts to identify all studies that meet the eligibility criteria;

• an assessment of the validity of the findings of the included studies, for example through the assessment of risk of bias

• a systematic presentation, and synthesis, of the characteristics and findings of the included studies.

Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. (2019). p.xxiii

A meta-analysis is an optional component of a systematic review. A meta analysis uses statistical methods to quantitatively evaluate pooled data from single studies. 

If you are writing a systematic review, you need to decide whether it makes sense to include a meta analysis. This can be a difficult decision, see the books listed on this page for guidance.

For a description of the most commonly used review types in Health Sciences see:

Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: An analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26(2), 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x

The table below is adapted from this article.