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Systematic Review Guide

Guidelines

Becker librarians adhere to guidelines and recommended best practices when creating systematic review literature searches. We also recommend that researchers become familiar with these guidelines--especially PRISMA guidelines--when conceptualizing the systematic review project.

PRISMA

PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Many journals endorse PRISMA and may require authors to use PRISMA when submitting systematic reviews for publication. 

Cochrane Handbook

The Cochrane Group are pioneers in creating systematic reviews and are often viewed as producing "gold standard" reviews. Cochrane has specific protocols for researchers working on Cochrane group systematic reviews. We use many of these protocols for our reviews because they are well-respected in the field. If you are new to systematic reviews you might find it useful to peruse the handbook below to get a better sense of all the components of a well-designed systematic review.

IOM/National Academies

The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (formerly the Institutes of Medicine) has a very detailed list of standards for systematic reviews. The standards cover each part of the process from initiating a systematic review through finding studies, synthesizing data, and reporting findings. 

PRESS

PRESS (Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies) is used by librarian to review systematic review searches. We use PRESS to self-assess our strategies and for peer review purposes. You can read about PRESS in the attached article below.