Search Strategy Formulation: A Framework For Learning

Healthcare information professionals perform systematic literature reviews to gather the evidence needed to answer specific research questions and formulate policy. However, performing a systematic review is a resource-intensive and time consuming undertaking, often taking years to complete. Moreover, the output relies heavily on the quality of the initial search strategy in ensuring that the scope is sufficiently exhaustive and not biased by easily accessible studies. In this paper we introduce a structured methodology and a framework for learning which together aim to embody best practices from the community and provide support for many of the common issues in search strategy development.