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- All Subjects: Systematic reviews (medical research)
From Transforming Print: Collection Development and Management for Our Connected Future, edited by Lorrie McAllister and Shari Laster (Chicago: American Library Association, 2021).
Arizona State University (ASU) is known for both enormous size and scale, as well as excellence in research and innovation. These attributes are embodied in the ideal of the “New American University.” ASU Library, as a partner in the New American University, has reorganized itself, completed a large-scale renovation of its main library building, and created interdisciplinary divisions of librarians and other professionals, backed up by subject “knowledge teams” that address specific research needs of faculty and students. As a result, the library has become involved in nontraditional projects across the university. This article is useful for libraries seeking to remain relevant and align themselves with institutional priorities.
Originally developed for medicine and related fields in support of evidence-based practice, systematic reviews (SRs) are now published in other fields. We investigated non-health sciences disciplines that are publishing systematic reviews.
Research questions:
“What disciplines outside the health sciences are adopting systematic reviews?”
“How do systematic reviews outside the health sciences compare with health sciences systematic reviews?”
Methods:
We conducted a search in the Scopus database for articles with the phrase “systematic review*” in the title or abstract. We limited our results to review articles, and eliminated health science focused articles using the Scopus Subject area categories. Articles were examined by reviewers to determine if they a) were classified as SRs by the authors b) exhibited accepted characteristics of systematic reviews, such as a comprehensive search, adherence to a predetermined protocol, and assessment of bias and quality, and c) addressed a non-health sciences topic. We eliminated articles based on 1) title, 2) abstract, and finally 3) the full text of each article. We reconciled differences for articles on which there was not initial consensus, and grouped remaining articles according to Scopus subject areas.
Discussion:
We found a significant number of systematic reviews outside the health science disciplines, particularly in the physical and social sciences. We compared similarities as well as differences to the protocols and processes used in health sciences systematic reviews. These findings have implications for librarians both inside and outside the health sciences arena who participate in systematic review projects.
Background & Objective:
Over the past several decades, systematic reviews have become a major part of the biomedical research literature landscape. While systematic reviews were originally developed for medicine and its related fields, they are now published in other disciplines. Our initial goal was to broadly investigate and describe the non-health sciences subject areas and disciplines that are publishing systematic reviews. Specifically, our research questions were,“What disciplines outside of the health sciences are adopting systematic reviews as a research method?” and “What implications may this have for health sciences librarianship?” Based on our initial findings, we will propose avenues for future research.
Methods & Discussion:
We conducted a search in the Scopus database to serve as a representative sample of the research literature. We searched for the phrase “systematic review*” in the article title or abstract, and limited the results to review articles from journals. We filtered out articles published in health sciences disciplines using the Scopus subject categories, and examined the articles that remained. The resulting set of titles was screened by two independent reviewers in a stepwise fashion. First we read the titles, then the abstracts, then the full text of remaining articles to determine if each was a systematic review and addressed a topic outside of the health sciences. We reconciled any differences for citations on which there was not initial consensus between reviewers. Lastly, we examined each remaining article to categorize its subject area or discipline. Our initial search included a number of systematic reviews outside the health science disciplines, and will yield data that has implications for librarians in the health sciences and in disciplines outside the health sciences field.