Grey literature in systematic reviews: a practical approach to searching and including in systematic reviews

Article type
Authors
mahood Q1, Van-Eerd D1, Irvin E1
1Research, Institute for Work & Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Abstract
Background: There is growing recognition that grey literature can be useful in systematic reviews. Searching for grey literature can be difficult, as it is not produced for commercial purposes, lacks bibliographic controls and may not be indexed in major databases. While there are publications that provide useful information about numerous sources for finding grey literature, detailed information about how to systematically search them is often not provided. Similarly, practical advice is lacking on how to incorporate potentially large yields into a review. Objective: This poster will describe a systematic and practical approach to searching and including grey literature in a systematic review based on a review about participatory ergonomics. Methods: Our approach included sources that could be searched systematically, such as databases that include grey with peer-reviewed literature, databases focused on specific grey literature types (eg. conference proceedings, dissertations), Internet search engines, Internet repositories and a library catalogue. Documents were also identified through hand-searching of conference proceedings or were recommended by subject experts, stakeholders, or review team members. Our full search strategy was modified to accommodate those databases with less sophisticated search capabilities. Results: Test searches in Google, Google Scholar and six Internet repositories produced unmanageably large yields or non-relevant results and were not included in the review. Seventeen electronic databases were searched. The yield from all sources was 2151 unique references (51% grey, 44% peer, 3% both, 2% unsure). Grey and peer-reviewed literature was tracked throughout the review. Fifty-two documents progressed to data extraction (37% grey, 63% peer). Conclusions: This poster describes an approach to searching for grey literature that is both systematic and practical. It focuses on those sources that can accommodate search strategies and allow download of references into bibliographic software programs. Issues of time and resources will also be discussed.