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Systematic Reviews

This Guide describes the steps involved in a systematic review.

Tools & Resources for Systematic Reviews

Registries:

 

Tools:

Abstrackr

A free web-based screening tool that can prioritize the screening of records using machine learning techniques.


Cochrane Interactive Learning

Developed by world-leading experts, this course provides over 15 hours of self-directed learning on conducting a complete systematic review process for both new and experienced review authors.


Colandr

Effectively sort through information sets that are too large to be sorted effectively by humans. Colandr will help screen through title/abstract, rank relevance as you screen, it will also learn relevance based on your choices and auto-sort citations.


Covidence

A web-based soft ware platform for conducting systematic reviews, which includes support for collaborative title and abstract screening, full-text review, risk-of-bias assessment and data extraction. Full access to this system normally requires a paid subscription but is free for authors of Cochrane Reviews. A free trial for non-Cochrane review authors is also available, with two reviewers and up to 500 citations.


DistillerSR

A web-based soft ware application for undertaking bibliographic record screening and data extraction. It has a number of management features to track progress, assess inter rater reliability and export data for further analysis. Reduced pricing for Cochrane and Campbell reviews is available.


EPPI-Reviewer

Web-based soft ware designed to support all stages of the systematic review process, including reference management, screening, risk of bias assessment, data extraction and synthesis. The system is free to use for Cochrane and Campbell reviews, otherwise it requires a paid subscription. A free trial is available.


GRADEPro GDT

Guideline Development Tool. The GRADE handbook describes the process of rating the quality of the best available evidence and developing health care recommendations following the approach proposed by the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) Working Group


PRISMA

PRISMA is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. PRISMA primarily focuses on the reporting of reviews evaluating the effects of interventions, but can also be used as a basis for reporting systematic reviews with objectives other than evaluating interventions (e.g. evaluating aetiology, prevalence, diagnosis or prognosis).


Publish or Perish

Publish or Perish is a software program that retrieves and analyzes academic citations. It uses a variety of data sources to obtain the raw citations, then analyzes these and presents a range of citation metrics, including the number of papers, total citations and the h-index. The results are available on-screen and can also be copied to the Windows or macOS clipboard (for pasting into other applications) or saved to a variety of output formats (for future reference or further analysis). Publish or Perish includes a detailed help file with search tips and additional information about the citation metrics.


Rayyan

Works with citation management software for importing citations. Allows team review of title, abstract, and full text resources that you've initially identified for inclusion in your systematic review. Allows for various functions, including navigating citations, filtering, labeling, excluding, collaborating, and includes an ai function that applies labels based on your previous decisions. Free on the web.


RevMan

Review Manager (RevMan) is The Cochrane Collaboration's software for preparing and maintaining Cochrane reviews. RevMan facilitates preparation of protocols and full reviews, including text, characteristics of studies, comparison tables, and study data.


 

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