Comprehensive Systematic Search Process of Health Literature: Hunting Pearls out of the Sea

Abstract

Background: Clinical information is expanding at an accelerated rate all over the world, encompassing scholarly articles, books, practice guidelines and grey literature. In knowledge synthesis practices systematic reviews are seen as the gold standard and in the heart of this methodology is a “systematic search”. Methods: This paper focuses on describing the “systematic search” process, which is different than a general-purpose search in conventional search engines. Our previously published paper was used as the example while describing the search process health care researchers might follow. Results: Almost every systematic search and screening reported in peer-reviewed scientific journals involves the following major steps: Generate appropriate and comprehensive sets of search words, find appropriate databases for the search, search in databases with a combination of search words, export search results into reference management software, and screening of literature. Conclusion: In this paper, we tried to focus on the systematic searching and literature screening for knowledge synthesis focusing on medical or health research. All of the methodological steps described here are part of standard practice for synthesis among scientific communities, while also based on the experiences of the authors in conducting review studies.