1. Purpose and Scope of this Guide

I have created this guide to help you as you work on your research assignments for HSCI 485. Systematic searching can seem overwhelming, since the goal is to approach the research question systematically and to find as much as possible that might be relevant to your topic. But planning a good search strategy, tracking your references and documenting as you go will make it much easier. If you have any questions or need help along the way, please contact me at hazel_plante@sfu.ca or 778-782-4962. Good luck!

2. Systematic Reviews & Searching

There is a multitude of information available to help you with applying the principles of systematic reviews. The library has handbooks in print and online, including Systematic reviews in health care : a practical guide and Searching skills toolkit : finding the evidence. The official Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions is also available full text online, although you may find parts more detailed than you need for this assignment. You may also want to look at the course guide for HSCI 891-3, which has information on searching databases for a systematic review and some general search tips.

Chapter 6 of the Cochrane Handbook has information on searching for studies, and includes the note that "The search process needs to be documented in enough detail throughout the process to ensure that it can be reported correctly in the review, to the extent that all the searches of all the databases are reproducible." This includes documenting what databases were searched, and with what search terms, as well as documenting all the other resources searched for your assignment (e.g. websites that were searched).

3. Setting up your search

Some aspects to consider when designing your search strategy include whether there are any geographic, time, language or age constraints.

A helpful step is to start with a small number of articles that you would want included in your results set, and check the databases to see what keywords the articles contain and what subject headings have been assigned to them. This will help to quickly build a pool of search terms. However, as you continue you may discover new and useful search terms. This may then require re-running searches to add those terms.

Keywords are important, both for picking up studies in databases that may not be indexed properly or at the level you need, as well as when searching for grey literature (more below). Subject headings are often different from one database to the next, so check for relevant subject headings anew in each database.

Generally, you will be able to break your topic into several concepts. For each concept, you will want to keep track of any related subject headings and keywords. A table can help with this.

Related terms for a single concept are searched separately, then combined with OR. You then combine the results of each concept using AND. For example:

(child* OR kid* OR adolesce* OR youth OR babies OR baby) AND (happiness OR well-being OR "quality of life") AND (aboriginal* or "first nation" or native)

Truncation symbols allow you to search for all variations of a word at once, e.g. singular and plural, by searching for all the words beginning with the letters before the symbol. In most databases and the library catalogue, the truncation symbol is the *, as in the above example.

4. Databases to search

5. Grey Literature Resources

Grey literature is literature that is not commercially published, and includes government reports, technical reports, conference proceedings, theses and newsletters. Grey literature is important for systematic searching, because the information contained in it may not be published elsewhere. Also, grey literature may help to minimize any possible publication bias, where non-positive results are less likely to be published.

How to search for grey literature

One step for finding grey literature is to try to identify who would be publishing this information. You can use your expertise and experience in the field to think of relevant local and non-local agencies. Once you have an agency in mind, you can go to the agency's site, and search through their publications to see if there are other relevant reports.

Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris includes publications from many Canadian public policy institutes, research institutes, think tanks, advocacy groups, government agencies and university research centers. 

Another resource is health-evidence.ca, which screens, summarizes, evaluates and rates systematic reviews and meta-analyses of relevance to public health decision-making. It's funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Google's site limits can be very helpful to find grey literature. Add the domain of the government or institution whose sites you want to search to your Google search. For more advanced searching techniques, check out "Get More Out of Google." Google Scholar also indexes a lot of grey literature, and is a useful source to search.

Conference Proceedings: Try searching indexes such as Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities and
Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science.

Theses: Check out this guide on Finding Theses and Projects from Other (non-SFU) Universities.

Clinical Trials: One option is to try the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL). The WHO also has a registry of trials.

Finally, looking at the reference list of other related reviews or systematic reviews is a good way to identify both relevant grey literature and traditional academic literature. The evidence-based medicine guide has more information on finding systematic reviews.

6. Finding information on children

  • Traditional health and psychology database searching: Use a combination of limits, subject headings and keywords. Many of the databases have limits for age, including Medline and PsycINFO. However, to be sure that you don't miss out on studies that may not have been assigned an age limit, you can also add in keywords and subject headings related to children. One example of a set-up search is Medline Filters for Child Health. Another example of a "pediatric filter" can be found in this paper on Interventions for Preventing Obesity in Children.
  • Children-focused databases: Try searching some of the children-specific databases, including ERIC, an education database. More databases can be found on the SFU Library Databases: Education page.
  • Grey literature from children-focused agencies: Look at lists of children's mental health associations and resources, such as those found on Children's Mental Health Ontario Other Resources and BC Child and Youth Mental Health Links. Then, search those sites to see if there are any reports or studies that might be useful for your assignments.

7. Citation Management Tools

Citation or reference management tools collect your journal article, book, or other document citations together in one place, and help you create properly formatted bibliographies in almost any style — in seconds.  Citation management tools help you keep track of your sources while you work and store your references for future use and reuse.