Systematic Review
Conduct a rigorous systematic literature review following established PRISMA guidelines for transparent, reproducible research synthesis.
Usage
- Define your research question using the PICO framework (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome)
- Design search strategies with Boolean operators across multiple databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science)
- Apply inclusion and exclusion criteria to screen titles, abstracts, then full texts
- Assess study quality using standardized tools (Cochrane RoB, Newcastle-Ottawa, CASP)
- Extract data into structured tables and synthesize findings narratively or with meta-analysis
Examples
- Medical review: Search PubMed and Cochrane for RCTs on mindfulness for anxiety, screen 2000 results to 15 included studies, assess risk of bias, calculate pooled effect size
- Education review: Search ERIC and PsycINFO for technology-enhanced learning interventions, apply CASP checklist, synthesize findings by intervention type and outcome measure
- Technology review: Search IEEE and ACM for federated learning privacy techniques, categorize by approach (differential privacy, secure aggregation, etc.), identify research gaps
Guidelines
- Register your protocol on PROSPERO before beginning to prevent outcome reporting bias
- Use at least two independent reviewers for screening and quality assessment to reduce selection bias
- Document every step with enough detail that another researcher could reproduce your search exactly
- Report the PRISMA flow diagram showing records at each screening stage
- Clearly distinguish between absence of evidence and evidence of absence in your conclusions