Literature Reviews, Systematic Reviews & More for Health Sciences
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Your Health Sciences Librarian
Room A273
Lederle Graduate Research Center Lowrise
740 N Pleasant St
Guide Overview
This guide contains resources and links about various types of reviews: literature, systematic, scoping, integrative, meta-analysis, etc. The target audience for this guide are students in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences and College of Nursing. For more general audiences, check out the Literature Review Tips & Tools guide.
Please contact me if you have specific questions, or use the Schedule Appointment link under my picture to set up a meeting.
Your Librarian,
Ellen
Need some help on how to interpret a research study? This brief from the Guttmacher Institute was written about social science research, but most of the questions to ask apply to all types of research.
Different Types of Reviews
Not sure what the difference is between various types of reviews? These articles describe many types of reviews, what they are used for, and the differences between them. They are long and details, so for a quicker overview, check out the tables, which provide good summaries.
Literature Review Workshop Slides & Recording
- Fall 2023 Literature Review Workshop SlidesHandout of slides from the Fall 2023 version of the workshops
NOTE: Current captions on the video were auto-generated by YouTube. We will be editing those captions when time permits.
Ellen's Tips for Doing Comprehensive Literature Searches
In this video, I share tips on methodology, performing searches (including a sample search), documenting searches, and mention a few tools that might be helpful. The document underneath covers the same content in written form.
Getting Started
The best place to start your search is with the databases of academic literature for your discipline. Here are a few used across many science and health science disciplines.
- Cochrane Library This link opens in a new windowIndependent evidence-based information to inform healthcare decision making for medical caregivers and patients.Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
- PubMed This link opens in a new windowNational Library of Medicine's comprehensive database of citations to medical journal articles, with links to UMass-subscribed full text, 1946-present. PubMed includes all MEDLINE content, plus content from additional journals and books in the life sciences.Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
- Web of Science This link opens in a new windowIndex to articles from peer-reviewed journals in all disciplines.Search by cited reference, topic, author, and more. Arts and Humanities covers 1975-present; Social Sciences 1900-present; and Science 1900-present.Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
- Scopus This link opens in a new windowScopus is an indexing and abstracting database of peer-reviewed scholarly content covering the sciences, social sciences, and arts & humanities, comparable to the Web of Science. Scopus allows for the discovery, tracking, and analysis of scholarship that includes: journal articles, conference proceedings, trade magazines, book series, books and book chapters, and patents.
Use Scopus to:
• Search for documents by topic, title, author, or institutional affiliation
• Perform citation searches and establish citation alerts
• Export citations to reference management systems
• View impact metrics for authors and journals
• Integrate Scopus content with ORCID profilesAvailable on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
To find additional sources, check out the Subject Guides for your discipline. Look for the Find Articles tab to get a list of suggested databases, but remember that, depending on your topic, you may want to consult additional sources. Feel free to contact me if you are unsure of what databases to use.
Exporting Large Results Sets to Citation Managers
Here is my handout with instructions on how to export large results sets to be able to import into Citation Managers and remove duplicate items. I also made a video showing how to export results from PubMed, EBSCOhost databases, Web of Science, and ProQuest database.
NOTE: This procedure is also the one to follow to get files with results to upload to Rayyan for screening articles.
- Exporting Large Result Sets to Citation Managers and Removing DuplicatesGeneral instructions for getting a large number of results from databases (including PubMed, CINAHL, PsycInfo, Web of Science, and ERIC) into citation managers, and links to how to remove duplicates in Zotero and Mendeley
Exporting Large Results Sets to Excel
Here is my handout with instructions on how to export large results sets to be able to import into Excel and remove duplicate items. I also made a video showing how to export results from PubMed, EBSCOhost databases, Web of Science, and ProQuest database.
(NOTE: I am still working on editing the CC transcript for this video!)
- Exporting Large Result Sets to Excel and Removing DuplicatesInstructions for getting a large number of results from databases (including PubMed, CINAHL, PsycInfo, Web of Science, and ERIC) into Excel, and how to remove dupcliates.
Evaluating Studies
- Critical Appraisal Tools from JBIJoanna Briggs Institute at the University of Adelaide provides these checklists to help evaluate different types of publications that could be included in a review.
- Study Quality Assessment Toolsfrom the NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
- CASP (Critical Appraisal Skills Programme) Checklists"Critical Appraisal skills enable you to systematically assess the trustworthiness, relevance and results of published papers. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) has over 28 years of significant and unrivalled expertise in the delivery of training to healthcare professionals."
- U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) Grades"For 40 years, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF or Task Force) has improved the health of people nationwide by making evidence-based recommendations on preventive services. Clinicians, healthcare professionals, patients, families, and communities all look to the Task Force to help them know what works and what doesn’t in preventive care."
Finding Grey Literature & Data
- Grey Literature in HealthThis guide from the University of Canberra Library describes several types of grey literature and how to search for them.
- Open GreySite for searching grey literature in Europe
- CDC StacksCDC's site to search all their publications
- USDA Nutrition Evidence Systematic Review (NESR)Previously known as the Nutrition Evidence Library (NEL)
- Agency for Healthcare Research & QualityAn agency of the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, this site offers information & data for a variety of audiences.
- Europe PMC"Europe PMC is an open science platform that enables access to a worldwide collection of life science publications and preprints from trusted sources around the globe."
- Health Data from data.gov"Explore datasets, tools, and applications related to health and health care. These resources come from across the Federal Government with the goal of improving the health and lives of all Americans."
- Science.govA site that organizes access to health and medicine information from U.S. government agencies. Current.
- Grey Literature Report"The report is a publication produced by the The New York Academy of Medicine between 1999 - 2016, alerting readers to new grey literature publications in health services research and selected urban health topics.
As of January 2017, the Grey Literature Report website and database will be discontinued and will no longer be updated, but the resources will still be accessible."
- Dissertations and Theses This link opens in a new windowUS and Canadian dissertations and theses from 1861 to present. Mostly full-text 1997 to present.Available on campus to all, or off-campus to UMass Amherst students, staff and faculty with an UMass Amherst IT NetID (user name) and password.
- Last Updated: Oct 1, 2024 5:04 PM
- URL: https://guides.library.umass.edu/hsreviews
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