Search Strategies: Systematic Reviews
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Overview of Search Strategies

Quality Search Strategy:   The following "hedge", or standardized search strategy, creates a comprehensive set of systematic reviews. It may take several minutes to run on Medline.   Note: $ is the truncation symbol on OVID databases.

1. meta-analysis.pt,ti,ab,sh.
2. 1 or (meta anal$ or metaanal$).ti,ab,sh.
3. (methodol$ or systematic$ or quantitativ$).ti,ab,sh.
4. 3 adj (review$ or overview$ or survey$).ti,ab,sh.
5. (medline or embase or index medicus).ti,ab.
6. ((pool$ or combined or combining) adj (data or trials or studies or results)).ti,ab.
7. 3 or 4 or 5 or 6
8. 7 and review.pt,sh.
9. 2 or 8

Save this strategy as an expert search.

Most systematic reviews so far have been prepared for studies of therapy or prevention. After entering the hedge, you can either search by target disease / disorder, or by therapy / intervention.  Because there are not a large number of systematic reviews in the literature on any given topic, generally use "all subheadings" in your search terms to maximize sensitivity. 

After entering the search terms, combine the result with the set generated by the hedge using the Boolean operator "AND".

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