A systematic review is a complex, time-intensive work that requires excellent record-keeping at all stages. It is important to create clear record-keeping systems and maintain consistent and meticulous records in adherence to recommended reporting standards. This includes:
Making a detailed record of searches conducted with the subsequent results.
This should include the databases and other sources searched, the date the search was conducted, the exact search terms and search fields used, any limits applied to the search (e.g., publication date, article language, etc.), and the number of results for each database searched.
see Developing Searches for more details.
Creating and applying preliminary inclusion and exclusion criteria (this includes providing justification and any subsequent revisions)
Evaluating borderline cases (those cases that are more difficult to determine eligibility status).
Include information on how borderline cases were handled (e.g., automatically included in the full-text review, eligibility disagreements that could not be resolved through discussion were resolved by arbitration by the additional screener, etc.).
Maintaining a list of the number of studies excluded at the screening stage based on their title and/or abstract
Creating a table to record individual studies that were excluded at the full-text eligibility stage, along with brief reasons for excluding each study based on your inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Common reasons for exclusion are publication type (e.g., non-empirical article), study design (e.g., unsuitable data), measure (e.g., unvalidated measures), and participants (e.g., too old or too young). This step is particularly important because it justifies the exclusion of studies that some readers might have expected to be included.
Describing the efforts made to find and retrieve unpublished work.
Developing a table to describe in detail the characteristics of studies included in the review.
For more detailed information, see the following article:
Siddaway, A. P., Wood, A. M., & Hedges, L. V. (2019). How to do a systematic review: A best practice guide for conducting and reporting narrative reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-syntheses. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 747-770. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102803
Remember to document exactly how you do your searches so you can convey the process clearly in your methods. The goal is replicability. Ideally, you want to run searches as similarly as possible across databases. However, your search may be adapted somewhat to accommodate the search functions and controlled vocabulary of each database.
The following table documents searches in several databases.
|
Database |
Search |
Number of Results |
Link to Results (If Possible) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Query: ("spatial working memory" or "visuo-spatial memory") AND ("traumatic brain injury" or "head injury" or "brain injury" or "brain damage") |
|||
| PubMed |
Query 1: When you enter the basic query above into PubMed, it will by default search all fields. Translated to Pub Med's syntax, it would look like: ("spatial working memory"[All Fields] OR "visuo-spatial memory"[All Fields]) AND ((("traumatic brain injury"[All Fields] OR "head injury"[All Fields]) OR "brain injury"[All Fields]) OR "brain damage"[All Fields]) Query 2: If you enter the basic query without quotations, PubMed will automatically map keywords onto its controlled vocabulary MeSH terms. Translated to PubMed's syntax, it looks like: (("visuo-spatial"[All Fields] AND (((("memory, short-term"[MeSH Terms] OR ("memory"[All Fields] AND "short term"[All Fields])) OR "short-term memory"[All Fields]) OR ("working"[All Fields] AND "memory"[All Fields])) OR "working memory"[All Fields])) OR ((((("spatial"[All Fields] OR "spatialization"[All Fields]) OR "spatializations"[All Fields]) OR "spatialized"[All Fields]) OR "spatially"[All Fields]) AND (((("memory, short-term"[MeSH Terms] OR ("memory"[All Fields] AND "short term"[All Fields])) OR "short-term memory"[All Fields]) OR ("working"[All Fields] AND "memory"[All Fields])) OR "working memory"[All Fields]))) AND ((((((("brain injuries, traumatic"[MeSH Terms] OR (("brain"[All Fields] AND "injuries"[All Fields]) AND "traumatic"[All Fields])) OR "traumatic brain injuries"[All Fields]) OR (("traumatic"[All Fields] AND "brain"[All Fields]) AND "injury"[All Fields])) OR "traumatic brain injury"[All Fields]) OR (((("brain injuries"[MeSH Terms] OR ("brain"[All Fields] AND "injuries"[All Fields])) OR "brain injuries"[All Fields]) OR ("brain"[All Fields] AND "injury"[All Fields])) OR "brain injury"[All Fields])) OR (((("craniocerebral trauma"[MeSH Terms] OR ("craniocerebral"[All Fields] AND "trauma"[All Fields])) OR "craniocerebral trauma"[All Fields]) OR ("head"[All Fields] AND "injury"[All Fields])) OR "head injury"[All Fields])) OR (((("brain injuries"[MeSH Terms] OR ("brain"[All Fields] AND "injuries"[All Fields])) OR "brain injuries"[All Fields]) OR ("brain"[All Fields] AND "damage"[All Fields])) OR "brain damage"[All Fields])) Note: You can set up the query to search specific fields (e.g., abstract instead of all fields) with each group of keywords. |
Query 1 Results: 75 Query 2 Results: 582 |
|
| CINAHL Complete (EBSCO) |
Query: ("spatial working memory" or "visuo-spatial memory") AND ("traumatic brain injury" or "head injury" or "brain injury" or "brain damage") When using the advanced search in CINAHL, by default it uses the query to search titles, abstracts, and subject headings. You can use the limiters such as "age group", "randomized controlled trials", as well as using expanders such as "apply equivalent subjects" |
30 | |
| Web of Science |
When using the basic search in Web of Science, by default it uses the query to search titles, abstracts, author keywords, and Keywords Plus. The resulting query translation is the following: TOPIC: ("spatial working memory" OR "visuo-spatial Working memory") AND TOPIC: ("traumatic brain injury" OR "head injury" OR "brain injury" OR "brain damage") You can set up the query to search specific fields (e.g., abstract) with each group of keywords. |
141 | |
| APA PsycInfo (EBSCO) |
Query: ("spatial working memory" or "visuo-spatial memory") AND ("traumatic brain injury" or "head injury" or "brain injury" or "brain damage") When using the advanced search in APA PsycInfo, by default it uses the query to search abstracts, authors, keywords, classification codes, subjects, titles, and translated titles. You can set up the query to search other fields (e.g., abstract). |
362 |
Before downloading or exporting the results from all database queries, have a couple of team members assess whether they seem relevant and within scope.