LibGuides: Systematic Reviews (2+ people): Finding systematic reviews & clinical trials

Finding SRs and Clinical Trials

Before you start your systematic review you will first need to make sure that you're not repeating work that's already been done by other people. This means that you will need to search for systematic reviews in your research area / on your topic to see whether there's an up to date SR that's been published, or whether there's a gap in the systematic review literature that your research can fit into. (Protocols should also be provided if a Rapid Evidence Review or Rapid Evidence Assessment is being conducted.)

You will also need to see whether a systematic review has been started. The protocol should be published on one of the protocol indexing sites which will allow you to see what's in the works but hasn't been completed / had the findings published.

On the next few tabs you will find some places where you could potentially find out this information.

Campbell Collaboration
The Campbell Collaboration is an international social science research network that produces high quality, open and policy-relevant evidence syntheses, plain language summaries and policy briefs.
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It also has a systematic review journal containing protocols. This may help you in formulating your own.

Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
DARE and NHS EED
The Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE) and the NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED) provide access to:
Over 35,000 quality assessed systematic reviews of health and social care interventions
Summaries of all Cochrane systematic reviews and protocols up to March 2015
Over 17,000 economic evaluations of health and social care interventions
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The Department of Health and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funded the production of DARE and NHS EED between 1994 and March 2015. Although funding has ceased and we are no longer adding new records to the databases both can be accessed via the CRD website.

International Database of Education Systematic Reviews
IDESR is a database of published systematic reviews in Education and a clearinghouse for protocol registration of ongoing and planned systematic reviews.

Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Systematic Review Register
JBI is a global organisation promoting and supporting evidence-based decisions that improve health and health service delivery.

JBI offers a unique range of solutions to access, appraise and apply the best available evidence.

JBI is driven to improving health outcomes in communities globally by promoting and supporting the use of the best available evidence to inform decisions made at the point of care. This work begins and ends with the needs of those working in and using healthcare services.
Please note that not everything is available for free through this site.

Prospero
PROSPERO is an international database of prospectively registered systematic reviews in health and social care, welfare, public health, education, crime, justice, and international development, where there is a health related outcome. Key features from the review protocol are recorded and maintained as a permanent record. PROSPERO aims to provide a comprehensive listing of systematic reviews registered at inception to help avoid duplication and reduce opportunity for reporting bias by enabling comparison of the completed review with what was planned in the protocol.
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PROSPERO is produced by the Centre for Reviews & Dissemination (CRD) at the University of York, and funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

Systematic Review Data Repository Plus (SRDR+)
In an effort to reduce the burden of conducting systematic reviews, researchers and developers at the Brown University Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) (previously at Tufts Medical Center), with support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) developed a collaborative, Web-based repository of systematic review data. This resource serves as both an archive and data extraction tool and is shared among organizations and individuals producing systematic reviews worldwide, enabling the creation of a central database of systematic review data which may be critiqued, updated, and augmented on an ongoing basis. This database is freely accessible to facilitate evidence reviews and thus improve and speed up policy-making with regards to healthcare.

OSF (Open Science Foundation) Registries
The OSF Registries is a resource to search for registered research, including protocols etc., where applicable.
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OSF is a free, open platform that can be used to upload research information, including protocols. You can also discover material, data, and research being conducted by others in your field which may be useful or lead to collaboration.

Many databases will index systematic reviews where articles have been written about the findings on completion of the review.

Just search for your topic / research as normal, looking for your terms within the abstract and article title (and, if appropriate, using a subject heading search). You can then do a separate search in the database(s) for the terms review, systematic, scoping review, or rapid review, and so on in the title of the articles to weed out results which don't contain one or more of those terms.

Finding clinical trials, research registers and research results
Resources recording ongoing and completed clinical trials are increasing and they represent challenges in identification and rapid searching. It is difficult to know how to efficiently search each resource. This resource lists trials and research registers and provides a quick reference guide to the search basics for each resource.

Ongoing trials and other research and research results are important to a wide range of people: patients, researchers, funders and the commercial sector.

This web site was developed following three training days in 2009 presented by Julie Glanville and Carol Lefebvre (Independent Information Consultants). Course participants assisted with the preparation and checking of the data and are gratefully acknowledged. Since 2009, the website has been regularly updated by Julie Glanville and Carol Lefebvre. We are grateful to Danielle Varley and Karen Bartlett for past help in editing the website.

Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL)
CENTRAL is a concentrated source for bibliographic reports of randomized controlled trials. Created from multiple sources, CENTRAL is a single searchable source for high-quality evidence.

The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) is a highly concentrated source of reports of randomized and quasi-randomized controlled trials. Most CENTRAL records are taken from bibliographic databases (mainly PubMed and Embase.com), but records are also derived from other published and unpublished sources, including CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.gov and the WHO's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. CENTRAL first began publication in 1996, but its composite nature means that it does not have an inception (start) date, in the way that other traditional biomedical databases do.

In addition to bibliographic details (author, source, year, etc.) CENTRAL records will often include an abstract (a summary of the article). They do not contain the full text of the article. Records are included irrespective of language or date of publication.
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All Cochrane Review Groups, and a few Cochrane Fields, maintain a collection of reports of controlled trials relevant to its own area of interest; these are called Specialized Registers. Unique content (i.e. records not already identified in PubMed, etc.) from these Specialized Registers is published in CENTRAL. Groups may also collect items that are not relevant to the individual fields of interest, and these 'handsearch results' are also added to CENTRAL. Some Cochrane Centres search the general healthcare literature of their countries or regions and also contribute records to CENTRAL.

U.S. Clinical Trials Register
ClinicalTrials.gov is a database of privately and publicly funded clinical studies conducted around the world (all 50 states and 221 countries)

International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) from WHO
The mission of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform is to ensure that a complete view of research is accessible to all those involved in health care decision making. This will improve research transparency and will ultimately strengthen the validity and value of the scientific evidence base.