Fernando - do you mean a systematic literature review (integrative review) or a systematic review/meta-analysis?

Dean, I mean a systematic literature review.

A detailed answer to this question is present at the homepage of the Dalhousie University Libraries. Please follow this link:

http://dal.ca.libguides.com/systematicreviews/dataextraction

Thank you, David!

Hi Fernando Savian,

You seem to be at the following stage:

- You (and a second reviewer) have already screened abstracts/titles

- You (and a second reviewer) have already screened full texts against eligibility criteria

- You now have a set of n studies at hand that shall be included in your review.

To extract relevant data from these studies, you have several options. A nice tool is Covidence (https://www.covidence.org/home), a website which provides a clear structure of the different stages of conducting a SR and which provides suggestions for data extraction as well. I also advice you to look at data extraction templates provided by the cochrane collaboration (https://dplp.cochrane.org/data-extraction-forms). They might give you some important hints on what data to extract. However, depending on the number of studies included in your review it might take a loooong time to extract your data when you use such an extensive table.

What worked well for me was to create my own extraction table in Excel after getting some ideas from the above-mentioned tools. I used different Excel sheets for different categories (e.g. study characteristics, task characteristics, exposure characteristics, and outcomes and conclusions). Then I piloted the table on 5-10 studies and made some changes as I realized some categories should be added and others modified according to my data at hand. Compared to the extraction table that will feature in my SR, this extraction table is still much more detailed. Consider that reviewers might ask you to add colums in your table. Finding a balance between beeing creating a too precise or too reduced extraction table is important.

Not directly related to your question:

Have you considered registering the protocol of your systematic review on PROSPERO (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/)?IMPORTANT: From 1st October 2019, PROSPERO will only accept review protocols if data extraction has not yet started. Advantages of publishing your protocol would be:

• You give a proof (to journals and colleages) of having worked systematically
• A systematic review takes time. If you registered your protocol, you let other reserarchers know what you are working on. This reduces the risk of others starting to work on a SR on the exact same topic.
• In your SR, you can refer back to your detailed protocol, which is more elegant than directly including ALL information (e.g. exemplatory search strategy) in your review.
• It promotes your work ;-).

All the best for the further process of your systemati review!!

Best,

Isabel

Thank you so much for your answer, Isabel Schiller ! I'm using my own extraction table in Excel, and I'll get some ideas from the above-mentioned tools. You're answer is very complete, and very useful!

I'll search about PROSPERO as well. I wish you all the best with your research.

Best regards,

Fernando.

Hello Fernando,

You may also wish to look into Cochrane Reviews at https://www.cochranelibrary.com/about/about-cochrane-reviews

Best wishes,

Karima

Thank you so much, Karima Lalani ! I will check Cochrane Reviews.

Best wishes,

Fernando.

We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method as explained in the following two articles:

Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG. Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. Annals of internal medicine. 2009;151(4):264-9.

Moher D, Shamseer L, Clarke M, Ghersi D, Liberati A, Petticrew M, et al. Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement. Systematic reviews. 2015;4(1):1.

Thanks, Barbara Hewitt !

Dear Fernando,

in addition to what has been already suggested, take a look at the systematic review toolbox, a community-driven, searchable, web-based catalogue of tools that support various tasks within the systematic review and wider evidence synthesis process. It is available at http://systematicreviewtools.com/index.php

Thank you so much, Maria Fabiani !

I would also recommend reading this BMC blog on systematic reviews at http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2015/01/05/planning-a-systematic-review-think-protocols/

Thank you, Karima Lalani !!