It is essential that you have a focused research question before you begin searching the literature as part of your Systematic Review. Broad, unfocused questions can result in being overwhelmed with unmanageable numbers of papers, many of which may prove to be irrelevant.
There are several different frameworks (see below for some examples) that you might want to use in order to identify the key concepts within your research question. These frameworks can also help as you start to consider what keywords you will need to use in your database search strategy.
Clinical questions include questions about treatment, diagnosis, prognosis and the causes of health conditions. PICO can help you to think about your question and what might be included in your search.
P - Patient, Population, Problem (Who is/are your patient or patients? Think about all the factors which might be important: the condition, the social setting etc)
I - Intervention (Think about Therapy (drugs, surgery, physiotherapy etc)
C - Comparison (Do you want to make a comparison? Think about, for example:
- a control group: no intervention; treatment as usual
- conventional treatment vs new treatment
- placebo)
O - Outcome (Think about, for example:
- alleviation of symptoms
- mortality rates
- adverse effects
- quality of life: better/worse?
- cost effectiveness
- practicality)
This is helpful for formulating your question for a review based on qualitative research.
S - Sample
P - Phenomenon of Interest
D - Designs
E - Evaluation
R - Research type
This framework is also good for a review based on qualitative research.
S - Setting
P - Population
I - Intervention
C - Comparator
E - Evaluation
Next step: Creating a protocol