LibGuides: Systematic and Rapid Reviews: Medicine, Health & Life Science

Resources and help on searching following a systematic approach

For resources, videos and tutorials on the whole systematic searching process, broken down into bite size pieces, including PRISMA diagrams, please see the MyUni Library Essentials module on Systematic searching.

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MyUni Library Essentials - Researching

Research Question Frameworks

Start considering your key search terms by identifying the key concepts in your research questions and then consider synonyms, related terms, different spellings, abbreviations, more specific and general terms that an author or authors may have used to discuss the topic.

Research question frameworks can help you to frame your research question and identify concepts for your structured literature review or empirical research.

We've listed a few research question frameworks here but there are many more. If your topic does not fit a framework you can also just separate your topic into different search concepts.

The PICO framework can help you to frame your research question and identify concepts for a medical/clinical search. It is widely used in systematic reviews and evidence-based practice.

Example question: Does the use of Handwashing reduce the risk of hospital acquired infections.

Problem/Patient/Population	Who or what is the focus of your research	Hospital acquired infection
Intervention	What intervention or treatment are you investigating	Handwashing
Comparison	Are you comparing this intervention (not always necessary)	Hand gels or sanitizers
Outcome	What effect does this intervention have	Reduce infections

The PEO framework can help you to frame a qualitative research question.

Example question: How does Alzheimer's affect the caregiver's quality of life.

Population	Who is the focus of your research	Caregivers
Exposure	What is the issue you are interested in	Alzheimer's
Outcome	Outcomes you want to examine	Quality of life

The SPICE framework can help you to frame your research question and identify concepts for a Social Sciences or healthcare search.

Example question: In low-income communities in the UK, how does access to green spaces affect mental well-being

Setting	Location of the study	UK
Perspective/Population	The group you are studying	Low income communities
Intervention/Interest, of Phenomenon	What intervention or treatment are you researching	Access to green spaces
Comparison	Are you comparing this intervention (not always necessary)	No access to green spaces
Evaluation	What are the outcomes	Does it affect Mental Health

Booth, A. (2004). Formulating answerable questions. In A. Booth & A. Brice (Eds.), Evidence based practice for information professionals: A handbook (pp. 61-70). Facet Publishing.

The SPIDER framework can help you to frame your research question and identify concepts for a Social Sciences or healthcare search, and is particularly useful for qualitative or mixed method research questions.

Example question: What are young parents’ experiences of attending antenatal education? (Cooke et al., 2012)

Sample	Group of people you are researching	Young Parents
Phenomenon of Interest	What is being investigated	Experience of Antenatal education
Design	Research methods used	Questionnaires or Interviews
Evaluation	What outcomes are being measured	Views or Experiences
Research type	What is the research type	Qualitative

Cooke, A., Smith, D., & Booth, A. (2012). Beyond PICO: The SPIDER tool for qualitative evidence synthesis. Qualitative Health Research, 22(10), 1435-1443.

Key Databases

Embase This link opens in a new window
Embase is a biomedical and pharmacological database with access to more than 37 million records including articles from more than 8,100 journals published world-wide.

Medline This link opens in a new window
Medline provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. Medline uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing with tree hierarchy, subheadings and explosion capabilities to search citations from over 5,400 current biomedical journals.

Scopus This link opens in a new window
Scopus is an abstract and citation database of research literature and quality web sources in the fields of Medicine, Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and Life Sciences. The database also provides information on citation analysis for specific articles, authors, and journal metrics.

Additional Databases

Click on the button below to see a list of all our databases. Refine your search further by choosing a Subject or Type from the drop-down list.

Click here for Additional databases

Grey literature and Datasets

Grey literature refers to both published and unpublished research material that is not available commercially. A systematic review can be biased when it fails to report crucial information that may be hidden in some grey literature. A search of grey literature is one way to address potentially biased reporting of research results in published material.
Some examples of grey literature are:

conference papers/conference proceedings
theses
clinical trials
newsletters
pamphlets
reports
fact sheets, bulletins
government documents
surveys
interviews
informal communication (e.g. blogs, podcasts, email)

Grey literature can be the best source of up-to-date research on some topics note however that grey literature is usually not subject to peer review and must be evaluated accordingly.

Key steps involved in critical appraisal/quality assessment

Step 1: Note the design(s) of the studies to be included in your review

Step 2: Identify the type(s) of quality assessment tool(s) to suit your review

Step 3: Source appropriate quality assessment tool(s)

Step 4: Carry out quality assessment using the appropriate tool(s)

Step 5: Tabulate and summarize the results of your quality assessment

Step 6: Think about how the quality assessment results might impact on the recommendations and conclusions of your systematic review

Critical appraisal/quality assessment checklists for methodologies & searches

AACODS Checklist for Grey Literature The AACODS checklist (Authority, Accuracy, Coverage, Objectivity, Date, Significance) is an evaluation and critical appraisal tool specifically for use with grey literature sources.
Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEBM) This website contains details of learning resources available from the Centre (based at Oxford University) and collaborative departments. CEBM aims to develop, teach and promote evidence-based health care through conferences, workshops and EBM tools so that all health care professionals can maintain the highest standards of medicine.
Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) This set of eight critical appraisal tools are designed to be used when reading research, these include tools for Systematic Reviews, Randomised Controlled Trials, Cohort Studies, Case Control Studies, Economic Evaluations, Diagnostic Studies, Qualitative studies and Clinical Prediction Rule.
Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) GRADE is a systematic and explicit approach to making judgements about quality of evidence and strength of recommendations. It was developed by the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) Working Group, and it is now widely seen as the most effective method of linking evidence-quality evaluations to clinical recommendations.
JBI Critical Appraisal Tools JBI’s critical appraisal tools assist in assessing the trustworthiness, relevance and results of published papers.
PRESS: Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies The PRESS Guideline provides a set of recommendations concerning the information that should be used by librarians and other information specialists when they are asked to evaluate these electronic search strategies. This guideline updates and expands upon the 2008 CADTH report PRESS: Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies, as well as An Evidence Based Checklist for the Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies (PRESS EBC), published in the Evidence Based Library and Information Practice journal in 2010.
Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) develops evidence based clinical practice guidelines for the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland. SIGN guidelines are derived from a systematic review of the scientific literature and are designed as a vehicle for accelerating the translation of new knowledge into action to meet our aim of reducing variations in practice, and improving patient-important outcomes.

E-learning on critical appraisal/quality assessment

Health Knowledge - Developing a search strategy

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