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Searching for Literature for Evidence Synthesis

This guide goes through how to search for literature on databases for evidence synthesis research (Systematic Reviews, Scoping Reviews, Meta-Analyses)

Databases for Literature Searching

A core tenet of evidence synthesis reviews is reducing biases, and a comprehensive literature search is foundational to reducing bias. A comprehensive literature search cannot be dependent on a single database, nor on bibliographic databases (e.g., PubMed, Embase, Scopus, etc.) only.

Source: NIH

Databases

It is recommended to search all three of these science databases. It might also be a good idea to search in a subject specific database.

In addition to the Science Databases, it might be a good idea to search the following databases which are more subject specific