Objective: The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) is a professionally based organisation which sponsors and supports the production of evidence based national clinical guidelines. The programme is influenced by the needs of the Scottish health service. The time and resources for preparing and producing clinical guideline are limited, and do not easily permit full systematic literature reviews. This paper reviews the procedures developed by SIGN for the conduct and management of literature searches and reviews, and indicates how it is proposed to assess their effectiveness.

Methods: Standard operating procedures for the literature search and associated document management procedures have been defined and the quality objectives identified.

Results: 14 searches based on the SIGN procedures have been undertaken. Each has identified a volume of literature that is manageable by clinicians within the available timescale. Early evidence suggests that the results are generally acceptable, but clinicians remain concerned that they may be missing important material. The rationale behind the procedures is explained and the response of clinicians discussed.

Discussion: The search procedures specified by SIGN appear to achieve the stated quality objectives. Assessment of how effective these procedures are needs to be established by looking at how much of the evidence eventually used in guidelines is found by the original search.