A High Quality Systematic Review should seek to
Undertaking a systematic review:What you need to know by Livinski et al. from NIH's Office of Research Services is a good resource for learning about the detailed steps and requirements of a systematic review.
For more information see The PRISMA statement for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses of studies that evaluate healthcare interventions: explanation and elaboration. By Liberati A et al.
Before starting a systematic review look at PROSPERO, an International prospective register of systematic reviews hosted by The University of York and the National Institute for Health Research. Checking this can help researchers avoid duplicating current systematic reviews, saving the researcher a lot time and heartache. Registering with PROSPERO is free and allows researchers to notify others of their prospective reviews.
Publication Dates Covered: 1950 - present Free Resource
PubMed is a free service of the National Library of Medicine that includes over 21 million citations from Medline and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles.
Publication Dates Covered:1920 - present Paid for by K-State Libraries
The most thorough and extensive source in the applied life sciences, incorporating the leading bibliographic databases CAB Abstracts and Global Health. Other databases available are VetMed Resource, CABI Full Text, Distribution Maps Plant Diseases, CAB ebooks Archive (2008-2010), and Animal Health and Production Compendium (AHPC). Each database is available through the above CAB Direct link or an individual link found under the corresponding first letter. Over 13 million records are available in CAB Direct.
Paid for by K-State Libraries
The Cochrane Library is the gold standard for evidence-based research to inform healthcare decision making. It is a collection of databases including the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials.
Grey Literature, may also be spelled Gray Literature, is defined by The Fourth International Conference on Grey Literature as "That which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers."
Put simply, Grey Literature is research that is often not indexed in the databases provided by libraries and is often conducted by government agencies, both foreign and domestic, and NGOs (Non-Government Organizations). This information can be difficult to locate but includes valuable research and should be consulted for systematic literature reviews.
Grey Literature is especially dependent on the topic you are researching, so please contact me at clogan@k-state.edu to set up a research consultation if you are having trouble locating information or need help deciding where to start.