Evidence Synthesis, Systematic Review Services : The Systematic Review Process

Steps in a Systematic Review

UW Madison librarians are ready to assist you with understanding the systematic review process. We recommend that the PI and subject experts on your team will explore and manage all of the steps in the SR process, especially the steps that require subject knowledge and quantitative methods expertise. The tabs listed below describe a series of steps in the evidence synthesis process in more detail, and each provides helpful resources and guidance.

• Develop a Protocol: your research team should write a detailed plan of action for how your systematic review will be conducted.
• Develop Your Research Question: your team will need to express their research topic as a discrete, focused statement or question.
• Select Databases: your research team will need to identify and describe the resources they will use to find and retrieve that literature.
• Select Gray Literature Sources: this is an important step toward countering publication bias.
• Write a Search Strategy: this section will advise on how to construct a precise and productive search of the literature.
• Manage Your Search Process: you need to keep notes on your literature search process as you develop a search strategy and perform exploratory literature searches.
• Register Your Protocol: protocols should be registered and published in a registry as a means to publicize the team’s intent to conduct the review.
• Citation Management: citation managers are applications that help you collect, organize, cite, and share references.
• Article Screening: members of your team will screen the research literature you have collected and the team will come to a consensus about the articles that are eligible for continued analysis.
• Risk of Bias Assessment: your team will conduct this assessment on each research study the team selects for review to detect the likelihood for bias and the limitations of the evidence in a study.
• Synthesize, Map, or Describe the Results: there are many tools available to assist with analyzing and visualizing data. This is a short list of suggestions.

This step is critical. Conducting a rigorous evidence synthesis or systematic review is not a solo endeavor. As a best practice, it is recommended that your research team consist of at least three members who will assume the following roles collaboratively and in consultation, as desired and necessary, with additional (ad hoc) resource specialists.

Roles

• Project Manager
  This member of your team will assume responsibility for coordinating the project from start to finish.
• Search Specialists
  Team members may consult with subject librarians or other information specialists in order to conduct an exhaustive search of the research literature.
• Reviewers/Screeners
  Two to three team members will screen the corpus of research literature independently, applying the team's a priori inclusion and exclusion criteria in two rounds, first by title/abstract and then by full article. Similarly, this team approach will apply to data extraction decisions and risk-of-bias assessments.
• Data Experts and Statisticians
  Team members may consult with data experts and statisticians for guidance harmonizing and interpreting the research data presented by and across research studies. Highly recommended if conducting a meta-analysis.

While a variety of project timescales are suggested in the guidance literature, your research team should expect to invest anywhere from six months to a year (or more) depending upon the topic's scope, the quantity of the research literature, and the review methodology employed--(i.e. expected level of appraisal, synthesis, data extraction and analysis).