Why read systematic reviews?
The volume of published medical literature is enormous—far more than any one person could ever read. Systematic reviews help cut through that complexity by offering expert‑crafted, high‑quality syntheses of the best available evidence. Finding and reading systematic reviews saves you time, and can help ensure you understand the state of evidence in your field.
Where should I start?
Start simple
Finding a few good systematic reviews on your topic can be as simple as entering a quick search that includes the phrase "systematic review" like this one:
But you may want to be more thorough to be sure you're finding as much as possible on your topic.
Organize your ideas using Advanced Search
Part 1: Target the right search fields
This video explains:
- How systematic reviews are identified
- Strategies for using the document title, subject field, and document type fields to search those identifiers.
Using these fields ensures you're looking in all the places that may contain details about systematic reviews.
Part 2: Add your disease or condition search
- Create a second search for the topic of the systematic reviews.
- Combine it with the first search on systematic reviews
Next steps
Try searching for other types of evidence synthesis. Here are some possibilities:
- Meta-analysis (or metaanalysis)
- Umbrella review
- Scoping review
- Qualitative evidence synthesis
- Rapid review