Research Guides: Dissertations and Theses: Some Tools to Support Your Progress: Systematic Reviews

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Systematic Literature Reviews--

Systematic literature reviews are both a summary of what's known and often contain recommendations for practice, which is why they are more common in applied sciences, like medicine or nursing. Often, they may say what is likely to work well, what's not supported sufficiently to be recommended, and what practices are not recommended! Some include an economic evaluation, as what may work best in the lab may not be affordable in the field.

Links to databases with systematic reviews

CINAHL Complete This link opens in a new window
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Covers 1937-.A comprehensive source for nursing and related fields, covering 50 nursing specialties, speech and language pathology, nutrition, general health and medicine and more. CINAHL also indexes books and dissertations."
ERIC (Ebsco) This link opens in a new window
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Covers: 1966-. Complete database on educational materials from the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC). ERIC indexes two different kinds of publication: journal articles and ERIC Documents or reports.
MEDLINE Complete (Ebsco) This link opens in a new window
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Covers 1950-. A comprehensive index from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, covering journal articles in all areas of the life sciences, with particular emphasis on biomedicine. Includes all areas of human and veterinary medicine, dentistry, nutrition, toxicology, pathology, public health, and health services administration. MEDLINE is a part of the National Library of Medicine's PubMed information suite.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
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Covers: 1950-. A service of the National Library of Medicine that includes citations from MEDLINE and biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. Offers comprehensive coverage of all areas of human and veterinary medicine, dentistry, nutrition, toxicology, pathology, public health, and health services administration.

National Quality Measures Clearinghouse
From the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services-- look for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Physiotherapy Evidence Database, PEDro

APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
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Covers 1887-. Provides access to the international literature in psychology and related behavioral and social sciences, including psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, education, pharmacology, and linguistics. Indexes journals, as well as books, technical reports, dissertations, and other materials.

Guide to Community Preventive Services (from the Centers for Disease Control).
"The Guide to Community Preventive Services is a free resource to help you choose programs and policies to improve health and prevent disease in your community. Systematic reviews are used to answer these questions: Which programs and policy interventions have been proven effective? Are they right for my community? What is the cost? What is the likely return on investment?"
TRIP database: clinical search engine
"The TRIP Database is a clinical search tool designed to allow health professionals to rapidly identify the highest quality clinical evidence for clinical practice." Usually you'll find summaries rather than full reports, but this varies.
They have a "Pro" version that costs $, but some material is still freely available.

Graph of study strength

Relative Strength of Studies
from vox.com, 1/13/15
http://www.vox.com/2015/1/5/7482871/types-of-study-design

How to Read a Paper (Medical research in particular) from BMJ

How to read a paper | BMJ