Evidence Synthesis Reviews - SYP6563 - Reactions to Domestic Violence - UCF Research Guides at University of Central Florida Libraries

What is evidence synthesis?

Evidence synthesis is "...a type of research method that allows researchers to bring together all relevant information on a research question. This can be useful to identify gaps in knowledge, establish an evidence base for best-practice guidance, or help inform policymakers and practitioners" (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). (h/t Rutgers University Library)

For the purposes of our class and project, what I would like for you to focus on is finding reviews related to your topic - these reviews objectively sort through research to, again, provide evidence from studies to establish baselines for best practices or help inform policymakers.

Searching for Evidence Synthesis Reviews

The following databases are good starting points when searching for evidence synthesis reviews

Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics)
Provides citation indexing of top high-impact journals with powerful tools such as cited reference searching and Author Finder, 256 categories thoroughly cover the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Citation Indexes for finding articles that cite a given author or citation.
- Science Citation Index Expanded (1965+)
- Social Sciences Citation Index (1965+)
- Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975+)

Citation Connection is now available. This includes:
- Data Citation Index (1900+)
- Derwent Innovations Index – Patents Database (1963+)
- Book Citation Index: Scholarly Books (2005+)
- Conference Proceedings Citation Index (1990+)
- Index Chemicus (IC) (1989+)
- Current Chemical Reactions (1993+)
- Current Contents Connect (1998+)
Campbell Collaboration Library of Evidence Synthesis
"The Campbell Collaboration is the home for evidence synthesis across the whole of social policy and the social sciences. Our research work is led by 11 coordinating groups: Ageing -- Business and Management -- Children and Young Persons Wellbeing -- Climate Solutions -- Crime and Justice -- Disability -- Education -- International Development -- Knowledge Translation and Implementation (KTI) -- Methods -- Social Welfare"
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (Wiley)
"contains full text articles, as well as protocols focusing on the effects of healthcare"
"Data is evidence-based medicine and is often combined statistically (with meta-analysis) to increase the power of the findings of numerous studies, each too small to produce reliable results individually."
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
identifies "free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals"

The following databases lean more in the direction of specific subject areas, like the social sciences, health sciences, behavioral sciences, etc. In some databases you can limit your search results to evidence synthesis reviews - try looking under "Publication Type" for "Systematic Reviews" or "Scoping Reviews."

APA PsycInfo (EBSCOhost) (1887+)
The APA PsycInfo® database, American Psychological Association’s (APA) renowned resource for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. It contains records and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s with one of the highest DOI matching rates in the publishing industry. Journal coverage, which spans from the 1800s to the present, includes international material selected from periodicals in dozens of languages.
"contains approximately 5 million citations and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s with DOIs for over 1.4 million records. Ninety-eight percent of the covered material is peer-reviewed. The database also includes information about the psychological aspects of related fields such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, technology, linguistics, anthropology, business, law and others. Journal coverage, which spans from the1800s to present, includes international material selected from around 2,400 periodicals in dozens of languages."
Psychological Abstracts:
* 1927-1947 Microfilm BF1.P65
* 1948-2004 print in remote storage
CINAHL Ultimate (EBSCOhost) (1937+)
CINAHL Ultimate provides 1,815 active full-text journals and covers over 50 nursing specialties. Additionally, it features full-text quick lessons, evidence-based care sheets, continuing education modules, nursing instructional videos, and more. This authoritative file contains full text for many of the most used journals in the CINAHL index, with no embargo. Additionally, it features full-text quick lessons, evidence-based care sheets, continuing education modules, nursing instructional videos, and more.
ERIC (EBSCOhost) (1966+)
ERIC, the Education Resource Information Center, provides access to education literature and research. The database provides access to information from journals included in the Current Index of Journals in Education and Resources in Education Index. Content includes journal articles, research reports, curriculum and teaching guides, conference papers, dissertations and theses, and books dating back to 1966.
ERIC is available from several database vendors, including ProQuest. UCF students are advised to use ERIC in EBSCOhost, which provides many links to full text and allows users to search multiple education databases simultaneously. Users who are not UCF students are advised to use ERIC from DOE because no login is required.
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) (ProQuest) (1951+)
includes over 3 million bibliographic references to journal articles and to books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951
"It is unique in its broad coverage of international material and incorporates over 100 languages and countries. Over 2,800 journals are regularly indexed and some 7,000 books are included each year. Abstracts are provided for half of all current journal articles."
Subject coverage:
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Cultural studies
- Demography
- Economics
- Education
- Ethnology and ethnography
- Political science
- Religious studies
- Sociology
MEDLINE (EBSCOhost) (1946+)
MEDLINE provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. Created by the National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing with tree, tree hierarchy, subheadings and explosion capabilities to search citations from over 5,400 current biomedical journals.
Subject content includes anatomy; communication disorders; microbiology; paramedical professions; pathology; physiology; psychiatry; toxicology; dentistry; parasitology; reproductive biology; epidemiology; gene therapy; surgical and pharmaceutical intervention; nursing practice; ethical and legal issues; institutional operations; laboratory techniques and procedures; diagnosis and management; clinical research trials and experimental treatment protocols; legislation and regulation; allied health specialties; continuing education; investigational drugs and new drug uses, and some veterinary medicine.
PAIS Index (ProQuest) (1915+)
contains references to more than 553,300 journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, microfiche, Internet material, & more.
The print index provides coverage for 1915-1974 - Main Library Reference H1.P8
"PAIS (originally, the Public Affairs Information Service) was established in 1914. There are two databases created from the files: PAIS International and PAIS Archive. PAIS International includes records from the print PAIS Bulletin 1977 and forward; it also includes PAIS print Foreign Language Index published 1972-1990, at which time it merged with the PAIS Bulletin.
The PAIS International database contains continually updated records for over half a million journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference papers, web content, and more. Newspapers and newsletters are not indexed. PAIS International includes publications from over 120 countries throughout the world. In addition to English, some of the indexed materials are published in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and other languages. It is updated quarterly with over 17,000 current records added in total each year.
PAIS Archive is a retrospective conversion of the PAIS Annual Cumulated Bulletin, volumes 1-62, published 1915-1976. PAIS Archive contains over 1.23 million records and covers monographs, periodical articles, notes and announcements, and analytics. The original, historical subject headings have been retained. PAIS Archive provides a unique perspective on the 20th century’s most important public and social policies, such as Prohibition, suffrage, pacifism, civil rights, McCarthyism, Vietnam War, and Watergate."
PubMed Central (1906+)
U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.
Social Science Premium Collection (ProQuest) (1871+)
provides access to databases covering the international literature in the social sciences, including politics, sociology, social services, anthropology, criminology and education
Included databases:
- Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA)
- ERIC
- International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)
- Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)
- PAIS International
- PILOTS: Published International Literature On Traumatic Stress
- ProQuest Criminal Justice
- ProQuest Education Journals
- ProQuest Political Science
- ProQuest Social Science Journals
- ProQuest Sociology
- Social Services Abstracts
- Sociological Abstracts
- Worldwide Political Science Abstracts