You will need to record how many database results your search retrieves in total, for all searches, and then remove the duplicates, and record these numbers for your PRISMA flow diagram. We would recommend that you export your database results as ris files, .ris is a file type that reference managers and other software can read. For further iformation about .ris files please see this Wikipedia entry.
Reference management software, like EndNote, can help you remove the duplicate records, you can screen the results within EndNote, or export a tab delimited file into an Excel spreadsheet or export the remaining references into an online screening tool. You might decide to remove this step completely and import your .ris files directly into a some screening software, please see below.
You don't have to use EndNote to help you manage your references but we strongly recommend that you use something. Referencing software allows you to collect, organise citations and references and insert them into your documents and will then format them into your preferred style and create a bibliography for you.
The other software to consider are Mendeley, Zotero, BibTeX as well as the EndNote Online which is the much simpler version of EndNote Desktop. These are not supported by the University as they are free to download so all technical help must be addressed to them. More information here on each to help you make up your mind.
Conducting systematic reviews means finding and sorting large numbers of references, you could be dealing with thousands of citations from many different databases. Endnote can help you manage this process.
To save you time we have written guides on how to download large amounts of references into Endnote from different databases. Please let us know if you would like any others included.
De-Duplication is a quick easy way to ensure you will not have to screen the same article twice.
Custom Fields can be used to create a place where different researchers can record their screening decisions, making it much easier to share decision making. See the following article for methods for using EndNote for systematic reviews: King, R., Hooper, B. and Wood, W. (2011) 'Using bibliographic software to appraise and code data in educational systematic review research', Medical Teacher, 33(9), 719-23, https://doi.org/10.3109/0142159X.2011.558138
You can use EndNote to merge libraries to quickly view screening decisions, Please watch these 2 screencasts from the ESMI team at the Medical School at the University of Exeter for more information. You can also follow the logic using the poster they produced.
There are a growing number of tools to help you with the screening process and some tools enable you to manage the complete review process, the benefits are, you can collaborate with colleagues regardless of institution or geographic location; further details below.
| Covidence | Covidence is a subscription resource, it is used by the Cochrane Collaboration for Cochrane Library Reviews, you can complete all stages of the review. |
| HubMeta | HubMeta is currently a free resource, it will help you create a meta-analysis, it covers all stages of the review process. |
| Rayyan | Rayyan offers a free option, the subscription version has greater fuctionality, mainly for the screening process. |
| Systematic Review Accelerator | SR-Accelerator is currently free, it has tools to assist with many stages of the review, including removing duplicates but the review process isn't streamlined. |
If you are new to the critical appraisal process, the following resources are a good place to start, the Understanding Health Research: A tool for making sense of health studies, along with these excellent eBooks:
To help you think about racial bias in research please explore Ramona Naicker's website Critically Appraising for Antiracism and the excellent learning object Critically appraising for antiracism: recognising racial bias in research.
