The aim of a systematic literature search is to identify all studies relevant to your research question. The search process must be well-planned and structured to ensure it is:
- Comprehensive
- Relevant
- Transparent and
- Replicable.
To achieve these goals, you will need to create a search strategy and perhaps have it reviewed by your research group or supervisor. Each stage of your literature searching process should be documented, along with selection, screening and deduplication, as well as quality appraisal. These steps will ensure that the review has been conducted with rigour and reliability.
When creating a search strategy, it is recommended to use advance searching techniques such as keyword filters e.g. a combination of title/abstract and subject heading terms. Boolean operators can be used to combine the terms effectively. Truncation and phrase searching may also be helpful, and some searches may require adjacency searching. To refine the search, a search filter (or hedge) and other built in database limiters may also be employed.
The following information provides a step-by-step guide for building a systematic search, covering each of the key points mentioned above.
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