Preparing for a Systematic Review

As national leaders in systematic review support, Becker Library provides a robust Systematic Review Service to the Washington University Medical Center community.

Becker librarians have recently updated the Systematic Review Request Form as part of their effort to continually improve the Systematic Review Service and give patrons the most comprehensive experience when working with a librarian partner.

The revised form is designed to be team-oriented and look at the entire scope of the review process to help librarians better assist you and your team.

Are you considering a systematic review?  To get started you’ll need to do the following:

  • Assemble your systematic review team.
  • Identify your research question.
  • Conduct a preliminary search.
  • Select benchmark articles.

Find more detail about these steps and the entire systematic review process in Becker Library’s Systematic Review Guide.

Becker librarians work with your team to design and report thorough search strategies based on guidelines and standards set forth by Cochrane, PRISMA and IOM.  Librarians provide:

  • Comprehensive, replicable search strategies for multiple databases and grey literature resources.
  • EndNote library of de-duplicated results.
  • Excel workbook of search results.
  • Written methods sections regarding search design and implementation according to PRISMA and IOM guidelines.
  • Data required for generating a PRISMA flow diagram.

Please allow for a minimum of four to six weeks for the systematic review literature search to be completed. Your librarian can give you a more precise estimate after you submit the systematic review request form.

We look forward to working with you on your next systematic review!