Systematic reviews: finding and managing the evidence

Systematic reviews aim to identify, evaluate and summarize the findings of individual studies in healthcare, in a systematic and unbiased manner, thereby making reliable evidence more accessible to clinical staff, decision makers and researchers. Effective, comprehensive literature searching is at the heart of the systematic review process and this guide will take you step-by-step through the process. In this guide you will find information about planning, executing  and organizing evidence searches to support systematic reviews.

This guide is aimed at NHS staff, researchers, academic staff and MSc or PhD students to provide support for the literature searching process when performing a systematic review. It can also be used to support evidence seeking for writing a thesis, guideline development, research or any other project requiring systematic and reproducible literature searches.