As you are conducting your search, results are usually imported to a citation management tool or a spreadsheet to manage and document your results. After de-duplicating results, the remaining articles are selected for inclusion though a two-step process. To avoid bias, two investigators independently vote and review each article.
- The first step is selection based on title and abstract review. Often the large majority of search findings is rejected at this step.
- The second step looks at the full text of the remaining articles to create a final set of articles to be included in review.
Selecting and appraising studies is a time-consuming aspect of conducting a systematic review. You may choose to utilize a software or tool to facilitate this process. See the Tools & Software tab.
Chapter 4 Section 6 of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions provides detailed guidance for study selection.