Translating the search
Accurate translation of the search, whilst sometimes counterintuitive, is vitally important. It reduces bias by making the search reproducible and replicable.
Which databases to use?
Considerations:
Medical librarians can suggest appropriate databases for you review. Methodological guidelines also list spaces they consider to be crucial to search.
It can sometimes be tricky to identify databases as opposed to publication sets, or publisher platforms (eg ScienceDirect). Your local medical library can help with this.
You may need to do some test searches to determine which journals are indexed in which spaces.
See the Cochrane Handbook's advice on which databases to search
Take a look at these papers evaluating database choices for reviews
Check out this guide on databases for research in health from Jessica Tyndall
Translation help?
Considerations:
Accurate translation of searches across different databases is crucial for rigour, transparency, and future duplication. It can be very tricky to get right though.
Search syntax and index terms are different within each database, even within those on the same platform (eg Ovid)
There are a number of resources to help with translating between databases, but the results will need still need checking.
Use Polyglot to help translate textword lines (does not work for index terms (EmTree / MeSH) - always check the translation!)
Check out this guide from Cornell University
Follow this syntax guide from Dalhousie University