Systematic reviews usually require detailed, sensitive searches tailored to individual specialist databases. This session introduces techniques to develop new searches by building on prior reviews, working with known relevant publications, testing for recall, and adapting searches between databases. 

Presentation slides are available in the attachments section.

Links to resources including preprint search platforms discussed in Q&A:

Finding prior reviews/searches:

Pubmed systematic reviews filter https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/help/#systematic-reviews

Cochrane Library https://www-cochranelibrary-com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/

Prospero https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/

PRESS checklist for search appraisal

McGowan J, Sampson M, Salzwedel DM, Cogo E, Foerster V, Lefebvre C. PRESS Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies: 2015 Guideline Statement. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 2016 Jul;75:40–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2016.01.021

Polyglot (helps translate searches between databases) from Systematic Review Accelerator

Ovid search history launcher https://tools-ovid-com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/ovidtools/launcher.html

PRISMA-S for guidance on how to report search methods

Rethlefsen, M.L., Kirtley, S., Waffenschmidt, S. et al. PRISMA-S: an extension to the PRISMA Statement for Reporting Literature Searches in Systematic Reviews. Syst Rev 10, 39 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-020-01542-z

medrxivr (alternative to native medRxiv search interface): https://mcguinlu.shinyapps.io/medrxivr/

preVIEW (covid-19-specific preprint database hosted by ZBMed): https://preview.zbmed.de/