About this guide
This guide contains information, demonstrations and instructions to help post-graduate students and researchers embark on a systematic search in Health.
What is systematic searching?
Systematic searching is an organised search process for finding relevant literature on a particular topic that carefully considers your search terms, search techniques, selection of databases, and search methods. Throughout the process you need to document your search and reflect on the search results obtained.
For a search to be considered systematic it generally meets the following four requirements:
Transparent
Publish your search method for others to see.
Reproducible
Provide enough detail for others to reproduce your search.
Exhaustive
Use all relevant resources to avoid missing important literature.
Attempt to minimise bias
Screened and planned by multiple team members to prevent individual bias.
Systematic searching is an expected part of a systematic review, scoping review and other evidence syntheses. For more information on systematic reviews and other literature reviews, check out the Systematic and Systematic-like Review Toolkit guide.
Systematic searching journey
When undertaking systematic searching, you will go through several stages of the process to ensure you develop a search strategy that can find all the relevant resources required to address your research question.
