Searching for grey literature for systematic reviews: challenges and benefits
Tóm tắt
There is ongoing interest in including grey literature in systematic reviews. Including grey literature can broaden the scope to more relevant studies, thereby providing a more complete view of available evidence. Searching for grey literature can be challenging despite greater access through the Internet, search engines and online bibliographic databases. There are a number of publications that list sources for finding grey literature in systematic reviews. However, there is scant information about how searches for grey literature are executed and how it is included in the review process. This level of detail is important to ensure that reviews follow explicit methodology to be systematic, transparent and reproducible.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed account of one systematic review team's experience in searching for grey literature and including it throughout the review. We provide a brief overview of grey literature before describing our search and review approach. We also discuss the benefits and challenges of including grey literature in our systematic review, as well as the strengths and limitations to our approach. Detailed information about incorporating grey literature in reviews is important in advancing methodology as review teams adapt and build upon the approaches described. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Từ khóa
Tài liệu tham khảo
Auger CP, 1988, Information Sources in Grey Literature
Bates ME, 2011, Is Google hiding my news?, Online, 35, 64
Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH).2011.Grey matters: a practical search tool for evidenced‐based medicine[Web Site]. Available at:http://cadth.ca/resources/grey‐matters. Accessed on September 5 2012.
Dobbins M, 2008, A methodology for searching the grey literature for effectiveness syntheses related to public health: a report from Canada, Health Inform, 17, 9
GiustiniD.2012.Finding the hard to finds: searching for grey literature[slides]. Available at:http://www.slideshare.net/giustinid/finding‐the‐hard‐to‐finds‐searching‐for‐grey‐gray‐literature‐2010. Accessed on September 5 2012.
GreyNet.2013.GreyNet: Grey Literature Network Service. [web site]. Available fromhttp://www.greynet.org/
Lefebvre C, 2011, Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions
Rothstein HR, 2009, The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta‐analysis, 103
SerialsSolutions Inc. (2012).Ulrichsweb: global serials directory [Formerly Ulrich's Periodical Directory. Accessed Sept 2006 – February 2007]. Available athttp://ulrichsweb.serialssolutions.com/login. Accessed on September 6 2012.
Van EerdD ColeD IrvinE MahoodQ KeownK ThebergeN VillageJ St. VincentM CullenK WiddingronH.2008.Report on process and implementation of participatory ergonomic interventions: a systematic review. Available at:http://www.iwh.on.ca/sys‐reviews/implementation‐of‐pe‐interventions. Accessed on September 5 2012.