Systematic Literature Review: Hand Searching

Hand searching is a systematic review method in which relevant studies are identified by manually searching relevant journals, reports, or conference proceedings. This method is often used to supplement electronic database searches, particularly in specialized areas where electronic databases may not have a comprehensive list of relevant studies. Hand searching involves following a specific set of inclusion and exclusion criteria to select relevant studies for the systematic review. It is an essential step in the systematic review process, as it can help ensure that all relevant studies are identified and included.

Hand searching is a critical part of the review to find materials not found through traditional searches. It is a manual process to examine and identify further relevant studies, and includes:

Perusing the pages of key journals, conferences, and other sources
Checking reference lists of identified articles and documents

Why is it important?

• Not all databases index items comprehensively. This may be because not all information is included in records, or not all journal content is indexed.
• Searches may not be comprehensive enough or may not include relevant key terms.
• The authors may not have described the articles accurately using key terms.
• Allows more detailed scanning of key journals and other sources.
• Some sources are not included in traditional databases.
• Ensures that relevant studies are not overlooked.

The Cochrane Training link below provides further information on hand searching:

• Guide to Hand searching: Cochrane Training

Citation chaining is a method that allows you to search forward (snowballing) or backward (pearling) in time, going from one relevant article to many. If you have already found a few relevant articles, this method will help you find many more articles on a similar topic.

Each database or information source operates differently, so it may not be apparent how to take advantage of the research you find. Some key areas of an item record to look for are headings or icons such as

Cited by
References
More like this
Controlled vocabulary, subject headings, and Tags
The author submitted subject headings. 
The quick reference guide below provides instructions on how to do this using the PubMed database: