Comprehensive Literature Review

1
Comprehensive Literature Review
Knowing what youre looking for - Search terms,
limits Information Sources - Bibliographic
Databases Information Assessment Information
Capture
Practical session Theses databases, subject
databases Reference Management Software JCR, ToC
Alerts
Rowena Stewart, Liaison Librarianrowena.stewart_at_
ed.ac.ukTel 0131 650 5207
2
Knowing what youre looking for
Comprehensive Literature Reviews

• What sort of question do you want answered
• What do I want to investigate?
• Can I get funded for what I want to work on?
• Whats in the literature in my area?
• What is the staff and patient experience of the
  12 step road to addiction recovery?
• Ive read this article, who else used it? Is it
  right?
• What else has that person written?

3
Knowing what youre looking for
Comprehensive Literature Reviews

• Identify the major subjects and think of
  associated words/phrases (search terms)
  including
• synonyms and alternative spellings.
• formal and informal terms

Any limits on the type of studies you want to
read? agegeographygender
4
Information Sources
Comprehensive Literature Reviews

• What type of information are you after?
• AcademicPopularPolicydefinitionssummary

• Where can you go?
• Use what, and the people, you know already
• Books, Dictionaries, Encyclopaedia
• Websites specialised sites, general search
  engine
• Abstracting and Indexing/Bibliographic Databases

• How much of the literature do you want to read?
• The scale of reviews runs from narrative to
  systematic the most rigorous systematic reviews
  being considered to follow The Cochrane
  Collaboration method.

Reviewing the literature systematically combines
well focussed research question and search
strategy with rigorous appraisal and synthesis of
the literature. Someone reading the review must
be able to repeat it.
5
Information Sources
Comprehensive Literature Reviews

• Library catalogue and e-journal pages tell you we
  have a journal, eg Journal of Traumatic Stress.
• Not that Zayfert et al in 2005, published in it
  the article Exposure Utilization and Completion
  of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for PTSD in a
  "Real World" Clinical Practice.

• Bibliographic databases are designed for academic
  researchers to find that level of information
  from thousands of publications (abstracts,
  journals, books, conference proceedings, reports
  and standards). Also they often
• are subject specific
• use subject headings/keywords of controlled
  vocabulary.
• have an export search history facility

N.B. Bibliographic databases 1) provide
references/citations for material and often
abstracts or summaries as well but only link out
to full-text 2) are not limited to what the
library has
6
Comprehensive Literature Reviews
references
7
Information Sources
Comprehensive Literature Reviews

• Be specific when you start to search for academic
  papers but, if you are not finding anything to
  read use broader words and phrases.

• Remember
• Use results to improve your search strategy
• Boolean logic for combing search terms/sets
• A papers reference list

• Consider finding articles citing work youve
  found useful (WoK).

8
Information Assessment
Comprehensive Literature Reviews
Heirarchy of Evidence (Sackett et al, 1996)
Randomised controlled trials (RCT) at the top,
esp. for answering questions about therapy for
which the non-experimental approachesroutinely
lead to false positive conclusions about efficacy

• But different situations call for different types
  of evidence. Examples from Sackett et al
• Accuracy of a diagnostic test - proper cross
  sectional studies of patients clinically
  suspected of harbouring the relevant disorder,
  not a randomised trial.
• For a question about prognosis - proper follow up
  studies of patients assembled at a uniform, early
  point in the clinical course of their disease.
• And even for questions about therapy, eg
  successful interventions for otherwise fatal
  conditions
• Client experience studies arent suited to RCTs

Need to decide what sort of evidence or
methodology is most appropriate to your
investigation and make this decision part of your
inclusion criteria, ie what dictates that a
paper/literature is used in your review or is not.
9
Information Assessment
Comprehensive Literature Reviews

• General information
• Currency Is there a date attached? Does it
  matter?
• Relevancy - how close a fit is it to your search
  strategy/inclusion criteria?
• Accuracy - Is there information included which
  you know is inaccurate?
• Authority - Do you trust the author of the
  information?
• Objectivity - Is there bias?

• Think about what a paper covers, eg PICO model
• Patient Population or Problem
• Intervention
• Comparison
• Outcome
• These can be incorporated into search strategy
  and inclusion criteria.

Critical Appraisal Crib Sheets are available to
help you assess different types of papers, eg
http//www.casp-birmingham.org/
10
Information Capture
Comprehensive Literature Reviews

• Reference management software
• Export references
• Can amend records in reference management
  software with additional information, eg
  where/how got reference,
• Can put images in record of their own

• For your methodology
• Record your search strategy(ies)
• Also record why it changes if it does and
• What changes there were to the sort of material
  you included or excluded as your search
  progressed and your strategy was revised

11
Further Reading
Comprehensive Literature Reviews

• Aveyard (2007), Doing a literature review in
  Health and Social Care A practical guide Open
  University Press, pp148 WZ345 Ave2007
• Greenhalgh, T. (1997) How to read a paper papers
  that summarise other papers, BMJ, 315, 672-675.
• Greenhalgh, T. (2006) How to read a paper the
  basics of evidence-based medicine, 3rd ed., BMJ
  Books/Blackwell Pub, pp229. W20.5 Gre 2006
• Greenhalgh, T. Taylor, R. (1997) How to read a
  paper papers that go beyond numbers
  (quantitative research), BMJ, 315, 740-743.
• Sackett et al (1996), Evidence-based medicine,
  What it is and what it isnt, BMJ, 312, 71-2.
• Dozier, M. (2008) Introduction to systematic
  literature searching, http//www.lib.ed.ac.uk/howt
  o/systematicsearching.pdf accessed 31/08/09
• cochrane-ent.org, What is a Cochrane Review? The
  Cochrane Collaboration, http//www.cochrane.org/re
  views/revstruc.htm accessed 31/08/09
• Critical Appraisal crib sheets from Birmingham
  Critical Appraisal Skills Programme website at
  http//www.casp-birmingham.org/