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Barwon Health Library Service: Systematic Review Search Service

Evidence for Excellence

Systematic Review Searching Library Service

Please note that due to staffing limitations and the significant time commitment (approximately 30 hours) required for a systematic review we are not able to accept all requests.

Review teams need to include at least two other authors who have more than a supervisory role, and to demonstrate a serious commitment to publish following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. 

Please note that we are unable to design search strategies or co-author in situations where staff are expected to do that themselves for study purposes. In those situations we can offer tutorials in literature searching, recording search methodology and Endnote.

Please contact the library for more information

Requesting the Systematic Review Search Service

  • The Systematic Review Search Service requires a brief consultation with a librarian prior to commencement of the search
  • The Systematic Review Search Service is for Barwon Health staff who require a systematic review search, as part of their work at Barwon Health. Librarians are not able to conduct systematic review searches for staff completing course work or assignments
  • Barwon Health Librarians can only search the databases that we have subscribed access to, for example Medline, Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and other subject specific databases. We do not currently have subscribed access to Web of Science, Scopus or Covidence
  • Due to the level of intellectual input librarian co-authorship is required for any resulting reports or research publications.
  • Contact us for more information

Systematic Review Search Service

Barwon Health Librarians can provide support in the following ways:
Capacity of the Library staff will determine the level of assistance that we can offer at the time.

  • In consultation with requester, developing the search strategy.
  • Database searching (limited to databases that we have subscriptions to.)
  • Search results provided to you with duplicates removed.
  • Search results provided in a file compatible with your selected citation manager, (eg Endnote or RefWorks).
  • The full search strategies for each database and grey literature source are provided in a report with the number of results before and after duplication removal and the last date searched. (in line with the PRISMA flow diagram requirements).

Currently the service does not provide:

  • Hand searching the literature.
  • Screening articles.
  • Contacting other researchers.
  • Pearl growing.