Systematic Reviews: How-To

There are increasingly more options for using tools that facilitate search strategy development and search and retrieval of records. Below are some of the tools that can be used to facilitate these steps.

Citation managers can be useful tools in the information management of evidence syntheses. They can facilitate deduplication across database searches, among other things. Below are some useful citation managers for evidence synthesis. Note that Mendeley is not recommended for use in evidence synthesis projects due to its limitations in tracking numbers of search results and removed duplicates. Also, see the next box on screening tool for additional information management and deduplication options.

There are many tools that may support the screening phases of evidence synthesis. Some platforms also support more than just screening--for example, some of these tools and platforms may be used to manage deduplication, title/abstract screening, full text review, data extraction and analysis. Below are just a few of the options available. Note that some of these tools also use machine learning approaches to facilitate screening.