[Date: 26 March 2025]
Conducting Systematic Reviews - From Search Strategies to Reference Management
Systematic reviews are rigorous forms of research that synthesise existing evidence to answer focused questions using clearly defined, replicable methods. They are especially valuable in healthcare, where decisions must be based on the best available evidence.
To build capacity in evidence synthesis, CCR hosted this annual workshop designed to help participants plan and carry out systematic reviews confidently. This year's session was led by Annelissa Chin and Stephanie Ng Yen Ping, both Research Librarians from the NUS Medical Library, who brought deep expertise in medical literature searching and reference management.
The trainers guided participants through key stages including formulating research questions, building effective search strategies, identifying relevant literature, and managing citations using EndNote.
Through hands-on demonstrations and guided exercises, participants learned how to:
- Define a clear focus question using frameworks such as PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome)
- Construct systematic search strategies using Boolean operators, truncation, phrase searching, and combining MeSH terms with keywords for comprehensive database searching.
- Navigate core databases such as PubMed and the Cochrane Library and apply filters like the Cochrane RCT filter for study design specificity.
- Use EndNote for reference management, including setting up custom libraries, organising references using group sets, and tagging sources by database.
- Understand the importance of protocol registration (e.g. in PROSPERO) for transparency and to prevent duplication.
- Develop skills in citation tracking, search documentation, and creating search alerts to monitor new publications.
The workshop also highlighted the need to tailor search approaches depending on the research topic, to search beyond peer-reviewed journals by including grey literature, and to maintain a critical eye when selecting studies.