Systematic Reviews

This is a revised list (May 18, 2018) of search terms for doing a comprehensive search for Systematic Reviews (SR).

Systematic Review is defined here as any review study that includes an explicit search strategy, study inclusion/exclusion criteria, and a synthesis of the literature.

The list was created by

  1. Doing a content analysis of two texts on systematic review (one quantitative and the other qualitative),
  2. Discovering general terms, i.e., synthesis, , systematic, analysis, searching and review.
  3. General terms were entered into a search and more specific terms pertaining to systematic reviews deriving from them were found - to enhance precision (this is referred to as word sense disambiguation). For example, review - quantitative review, qualitative review, realist review, etc.
  4. Word order permutations were checked, e.g., review or literature OR literature review.
  5. A total of 124 terms were found. These terms are listed first. They have not been optimized for a specific database, so they can be used across any database (except Google and Google Scholar because of their 32 word limit.
  6. These were then tested to see which terms were necessary in specific databases. That is, the general list was optimized for specific databases. The procedure for doing this is referred to as the Boolean Subtraction Procedure. For example, Term A NOT (all other potential terms). If Term A locates any relevant articles after the citations from all other terms are subtracted out, then it is kept in the list.
  7. The result was 39 search terms that are unique linguistic identifiers of articles on Systematic Reviews in MEDLINE.



Full list of search terms for Systematic Reviews

(these have been tested to make sure they execute in Proquest databases (e.g., PsycINFO and ERIC), and OVID databases (e.g., MEDLINE and EMBASE)


"data synthesis" OR "synthesis of data" OR "descriptive synthesis" OR "evidence synthesis" OR "synthesis of evidence" OR "synthesis of available evidence" OR "best-evidence synthesis" OR "framework synthesis" OR "interpretive synthesis" OR "knowledge synthesis" OR "synthes* of knowledge" OR "literature synthesis" OR "synthesis of literature" OR "synthesis of the literature"OR metasynthesis OR meta-synthesis OR "narrative synthesis" OR "qualitative synthesis" OR "quantitative synthesis" OR "realist synthesis" OR "research synthesis" OR "synthesis of research" OR "synthesized research"OR "review and synthesis" OR "synthesis of qualitative research" OR "thematic synthesis" OR "updated synthesis" OR "congruent synthesis" OR "critical interpretive synthesis" OR "framework synthesis" OR "meta synthesis" OR "qualitative evidence synthesis" OR "refutational synthesis" OR "critical analysis of the literature" OR metaanaly* OR meta-analy* OR "Retrospective analysis" OR "Qualitative analysis" OR "Quantitative analysis" OR "meta analy*" OR "systematic map*" OR "systematic narrative" OR "systematic overview*" OR "systematic review*" OR "systematically review*" OR "systematized review" OR "overview of systematic reviews" OR "systematic assessment" OR "systematic literature mapping" OR "bibliographic search" OR "database search" OR "search of database*"OR "electronic search" OR handsearch* OR "hand search*" OR "search by hand" OR "keyword search" OR "literature search" OR "search of literature" OR "search of the literature"OR "search term*" OR "systematic search" OR "comprehensive search" OR "manual search" OR "article reviews" OR "review of articles"OR "literature review" OR "review literature" OR "review of the literature"OR "overview* of reviews" OR "overview of systematic reviews" OR "qualitative review" OR "quantitative review" OR "realist review" OR "a review" OR "articles are reviewed" OR "authors review" OR "clinical review" OR "complete review" OR "comprehensive review" OR "conduct a review" OR "critical review" OR "critically review" OR "current review" OR "descriptive review" OR "epidemiological review" OR "evidence review" OR "review of the evidence" OR "evidence-based review" OR "integrat* review" OR "research review*" OR "international review" OR "is reviewed" OR "mapping review" OR meta-review OR "narrative review" OR "practitioner review" OR "rapid review" OR "rapid realist* review" OR "review all studies" OR "review and synthesis" OR "review of current evidence" OR "review of current research" OR "review of effectiveness" OR "review of the effectiveness" OR "review of reported cases" OR "review of research" OR "review of reviews" OR "selected for review" OR "selective review" OR "state-of-the-art review*" OR "structured review" OR "theory driven review" OR "scoping study" OR "meta-study" OR "literature-based study" OR "studies were identified" OR "compilation of the literature" OR "compilation of studies" OR "inclusion criteria" OR "exclusion criteria" OR metaregression OR "evidence map*" OR meta-evidence OR "systemic review"


Synonym Ring optimized for MEDLINE

("data synthesis" OR "evidence synthesis" OR metasynthesis OR meta-synthesis OR "narrative synthesis" OR "qualitative synthesis" OR "quantitative synthesis" OR "realist synthesis" OR "research synthesis" OR "synthesis of evidence" OR "thematic synthesis" OR metaanaly* OR meta-analy* OR "systematic map*" OR "systematic overview*" OR "systematic review*" OR "systematically review*" OR "bibliographic search" OR "database search" OR "electronic search" OR handsearch* OR "hand search*" OR "keyword search" OR "literature search" OR "search term*" OR "article reviews" OR "literature review" OR "overview of reviews" OR "review literature" OR "reviewed the literature" OR "reviews studies" OR "this review" OR "scoping stud*" OR "overview study" OR "overview of the literature" OR meta-ethnograph* OR meta-epidemiological OR "data extraction" OR "meta-regression") .af