Systematic Review

The aim of the systematic review is to find all information available on a particular topic. it is therefore important to widely and thoroughly search published and unpublished research.

A systematic review includes a search of: 

Databases 

• Bibliographic Databases

  • Medline
  • Embase
  • Proquest
  • Cochrane Library

• Subject Specific Databases

  • PsycINFO
  • Pedro Physiotherapy Evidence Database
  • TRIP (Turning Research Into Practice)

• Trials Register Databases

  • Cochrane Central Registrar of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL)
  • ClinicalTrials.gov
  • Australia New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR)
  • Australian Clinical Trials
  • World Health Organisation International Clinical Trials Registry Platform
  • ISRCTN registry (BioMed Central)

• Evidence Syntheses Databases

  • BMJ Clinical Evidence
  • Natural Medicines

• Practice Guidelines Databases

  • Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines Portal
  • National Guideline Clearinghouse
  • National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

The best way to find Australian grey literature is through Trove. Other sources of Australia grey literature can be found on the websites below:

• Australian Policy Online
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
• Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet
• ROAR: Register of Australian Primary Health Care Research.
• Department of Health (Federal)
• Health Direct Portal

Institutional Repositories

Many Australian Universities collect grey literature in their institutional repositories.

Australasian Institutional Repositories are available online.

WorldCat includes the holdings of 20,000 libraries world-wide (more than 1.5 billion items).

Some of the sites that index and collect grey literature are:

• Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) searches over 130 documents from over 6,457 sources.
• NGO search retrieves publications from the sites of hundreds non-governmental organizations (NGO).
• Open Grey holds references to over 700,000 pieces of European grey literature.
• Science.gov science information provided by US government agencies. Includes research and development results.
• Grey Matters

See Cochrane Handbook 6.6.1 Documenting the search Strategy

PRISMA

Prisma 2020 Flow Diagrams - Select the appropriate Word template to populate