research databases for literature

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Literature Search: Databases and Gray Literature

The literature search.

• A systematic review search includes a search of databases, gray literature, personal communications, and a handsearch of high impact journals in the related field.  See our list of recommended databases and gray literature sources on this page.
• a comprehensive literature search can not be dependent on a single database, nor on bibliographic databases only.
• inclusion of multiple databases helps avoid publication bias (georaphic bias or bias against publication of negative results).
• The Cochrane Collaboration recommends PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) at a minimum.     
• NOTE:  The Cochrane Collaboration and the IOM recommend that the literature search be conducted by librarians or persons with extensive literature search experience. Please contact the NIH Librarians for assistance with the literature search component of your systematic review. 

Cochrane Library

A collection of six databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making. Search the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials here.

European database of biomedical and pharmacologic literature.

PubMed comprises more than 21 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.

Largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources. Contains conference papers.

Web of Science

World's leading citation databases. Covers over 12,000 of the highest impact journals worldwide, including Open Access journals and over 150,000 conference proceedings. Coverage in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, with coverage to 1900.

Subject Specific Databases

APA PsycINFO

Over 4.5 million abstracts of peer-reviewed literature in the behavioral and social sciences. Includes conference papers, book chapters, psychological tests, scales and measurement tools.

CINAHL Plus

Comprehensive journal index to nursing and allied health literature, includes books, nursing dissertations, conference proceedings, practice standards and book chapters.

Latin American and Caribbean health sciences literature database

Gray Literature

• Gray Literature  is the term for information that falls outside the mainstream of published journal and mongraph literature, not controlled by commercial publishers
• hard to find studies, reports, or dissertations
• conference abstracts or papers
• governmental or private sector research
• clinical trials - ongoing or unpublished
• experts and researchers in the field     
• Library catalogs
• Professional association websites
• Google Scholar  - Search scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles.
• Dissertation Abstracts - dissertation and theses database - NIH Library biomedical librarians can access and search for you.
• NTIS  - central resource for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information.
• AHRQ  - agency for healthcare research and quality
• Open Grey  - system for information on grey literature in Europe. Open access to 700,000 references to the grey literature.
• World Health Organization  - providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.
• New York Academy of Medicine Grey Literature Report  - a bimonthly publication of The New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) alerting readers to new gray literature publications in health services research and selected public health topics. NOTE: Discontinued as of Jan 2017, but resources are still accessible.
• Gray Source Index
• OpenDOAR - directory of academic repositories
• International Clinical Trials Registery Platform  - from the World Health Organization
• Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry
• Brazilian Clinical Trials Registry
• Chinese Clinical Trial Registry - 
• ClinicalTrials.gov   - U.S.  and international federally and privately supported clinical trials registry and results database
• Clinical Trials Registry  - India
• EU clinical Trials Register
• Japan Primary Registries Network  
• Pan African Clinical Trials Registry

• En español – ExME
• Em português – EME

Literature searches: what databases are available?

Posted on 6th April 2021 by Izabel de Oliveira

Many types of research require a search of the medical literature as part of the process of understanding the current evidence or knowledge base. This can be done using one or more biomedical bibliographic databases. [1]

Bibliographic databases make the information contained in the papers more visible to the scientific community and facilitate locating the desired literature.

This blog describes some of the main bibliographic databases which index medical journals.

PubMed was launched in 1996 and, since June 1997, provides free and unlimited access for all users through the internet. PubMed database contains more than 30 million references of biomedical literature from approximately 7,000 journals. The largest percentage of records in PubMed comes from MEDLINE (95%), which contains 25 million records from over 5,600 journals. Other records derive from other sources such as In-process citations, ‘Ahead of Print’ citations, NCBI Bookshelf, etc.

The second largest component of PubMed is PubMed Central (PMC) . Launched in 2000, PMC is a permanent collection of full-text life sciences and biomedical journal articles. PMC also includes articles deposited by journal publishers and author manuscripts, published articles that are submitted in compliance with the public access policies of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other research funding agencies. PMC contains approximately 4.5 million articles.

Some National Library of Medicine (NLM) resources associated with PubMed are the NLM Catalog and MedlinePlus. The NLM Catalog contains bibliographic records for over 1.4 million journals, books, audiovisuals, electronic resources, and other materials. It also includes detailed indexing information for journals in PubMed and other NCBI databases, although not all materials in the NLM Catalog are part of NLM’s collection. MedlinePlus is a consumer health website providing information on various health topics, drugs, dietary supplements, and health tools.

MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) is the NLM controlled vocabulary used for indexing articles in PubMed. It is used by indexers who analyze and maintain the PubMed database to reflect the subject content of journal articles as they are published. Indexers typically select 10–12 MeSH terms to describe every paper.

Embase is considered the second most popular database after MEDLINE. More than 32 million records from over 8,200 journals from more than 95 countries, and ‘grey literature’ from over 2.4 million conference abstracts, are estimated to be in the Embase content.

Embase contains subtopics in health care such as complementary and alternative medicine, prognostic studies, telemedicine, psychiatry, and health technology. Besides that, it is also widely used for research on drug-related topics as it offers better coverage than MEDLINE on pharmaceutics-related literature.

In 2010, Embase began to include all MEDLINE citations. MEDLINE records are delivered to Elsevier daily and are incorporated into Embase after de-duplication with records already indexed by Elsevier to produce ‘MEDLINE-unique’ records. These MEDLINE-unique records are not re-indexed by Elsevier. However, their indexing is mapped to Emtree terms used in Embase to ensure that Emtree terminology can be used to search all Embase records, including those originally derived from MEDLINE.

Since this coverage expansion—at least in theory and without taking into consideration the different indexing practices of the two databases—a search in Embase alone should cover every record in both Embase and MEDLINE, making Embase a possible “one-stop” search engine for medical research [1].

Emtree is a hierarchically structured, controlled vocabulary for biomedicine and the related life sciences. It includes a whole range of terms for drugs, diseases, medical devices, and essential life science concepts. Emtree is used to index all of the Embase content. This process includes full-text indexing of journal articles, which is done by experts.

The most important index of the technical-scientific literature in Latin America and the Caribbean, LILACS , was created in 1985 to record scientific and technical production in health. It has been maintained and updated by a network of more than 600 institutions of education, government, and health research and coordinated by Latin America and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information (BIREME), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), and World Health Organization (WHO).

LILACS contains scientific and technical literature from over 908 journals from 26 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, with free access. About 900,000 records from articles with peer review, theses and dissertations, government documents, conference proceedings, and books; more than 480,000 of them are available with the full-text link in open access.

The LILACS Methodology is a set of standards, manuals, guides, and applications in continuous development, intended for the collection, selection, description, indexing of documents, and generation of databases. This centralised methodology enables the cooperation between Latin American and Caribbean countries to create local and national databases, all feeding into the LILACS database.  Currently, the databases LILACS, BBO, BDENF, MEDCARIB, and national databases of the countries of Latin America are part of the LILACS System.

Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS) is the multilingual and structured vocabulary created by BIREME to serve as a unique language in indexing articles from scientific journals, books, congress proceedings, technical reports, and other types of materials, and also for searching and retrieving subjects from scientific literature from information sources available on the Virtual Health Library (VHL) such as LILACS, MEDLINE, and others. It was developed from the MeSH with the purpose of permitting the use of common terminology for searching in multiple languages, and providing a consistent and unique environment for the retrieval of information. DeCS vocabulary is dynamic and totals 34,118 descriptors and qualifiers, of which 29,716 come from MeSH, and 4,402 are exclusive.

Cochrane CENTRAL

The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) is a database of reports of randomized and quasi-randomized controlled trials. Most records are obtained from the bibliographic databases PubMed and Embase, with additional records from the published and unpublished sources of CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the WHO’s International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

Although CENTRAL first began publication in 1996, records are included irrespective of the date of publication, and the language of publication is also not a restriction to being included in the database.  You won’t find the full text to the article on CENTRAL but there is often a summary of the article, in addition to the standard details of author, source, and year.

Within CENTRAL, there are ‘Specialized Registers’ which are collected and maintained by Cochrane Review Groups (plus a few Cochrane Fields), which include reports of controlled trials relevant to their area of interest. Some Cochrane Centres search the general healthcare literature of their countries or regions in order to contribute records to CENTRAL.

ScienceDirect

ScienceDirect i s Elsevier’s most important peer-reviewed academic literature platform. It was launched in 1997 and contains 16 million records from over 2,500 journals, including over 250 Open Access publications, such as Cell Reports and The Lancet Global Health, as well as 39,000 eBooks.

ScienceDirect topics include:

• health sciences;
• life sciences;
• physical sciences;
• engineering;
• social sciences; and
• humanities.

Web of Science

Web of Science (previously Web of Knowledge) is an online scientific citation indexing service created in 1997 by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), and currently maintained by Clarivate Analytics.

Web of Science covers several fields of the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Its main resource is the Web of Science Core Collection which includes over 1 billion cited references dating back to 1900, indexed from 21,100 peer-reviewed journals, including Open Access journals, books and proceedings.

Web of Science also offers regional databases which cover:

• Latin America (SciELO Citation Index);
• China (Chinese Science Citation Database);
• Korea (Korea Citation Index);
• Russia (Russian Science Citation Index).

Boolean operators

To make the search more precise, we can use boolean operators in databases between our keywords.

We use boolean operators to focus on a topic, particularly when this topic contains multiple search terms, and to connect various pieces of information in order to find exactly what we are looking for.

Boolean operators connect the search words to either narrow or broaden the set of results. The three basic boolean operators are: AND, OR, and NOT.

• AND narrows a search by telling the database that all keywords used must be found in the article in order for it to appear in our results.
• OR broadens a search by telling the database that any of the words it connects are acceptable (this is useful when we are searching for synonymous words).
• NOT narrows the search by telling the database to eliminate all terms that follow it from our search results (this is helpful when we are interested in a specific aspect of a topic or when we want to exclude a type of article.

References (pdf)

You may also be interested in the following blogs for further reading:

Conducting a systematic literature search

Reviewing the evidence: what method should I use?

Cochrane Crowd for students: what’s in it for you?

Izabel de Oliveira

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Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities, Scopus features smart tools to track, analyse and visualise research.

As research becomes increasingly global, interdisciplinary and collaborative, you can make sure that critical research from around the world is not missed when you choose Scopus.

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Literature search databases

Best literature databases for researchers.

• Web of Science (WoS)
• Google Scholar
• Arxiv by Cornell
• Science Direct
• Directory of Open Journals (DOAJ)
• INSPIRE-Hep
• IEEE Xplore 

Literature Search

Literature search database is a set of databases that index many different academic journals with different disciplines and other types of literature such as books and conference papers. For conducting research, reviewing articles, or a book, it’s better to search through multiple academic databases which helps avoid publication bias.

Moreover, it provides researchers and students with trusted resources, most likely peer-reviewed research articles.

• Thus, this article provides some of the key databases and platforms recommended for most researchers. It also helps them to keep up to date on the latest research relevant to their topic area as it is published. A top list of most used academic research databases is covered by this blog, let’s explore it together.

A Comprehensive Guide to the Best Literature Databases for Researchers

Web of science (wos):.

• Web of Science (WoS) is one of the world’s leading multidiscipline bibliographic databases. It includes the highest impact and open-access journals and conference proceedings. Web of science covers 100+ million scientific articles in sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities disciplines.
• Moreover, recently academic institutions provide free access to the Web of Science and Scopus on their campus network. Web of Science is maintained by Clarivate Analytics. All journals are submitted to the core Web of Science databases to be evaluated and indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI). The Emerging Sources Citation Index aims to extend the scope of publications in the Web of Science to include high-quality and peer-reviewed publications.
• In addition, Clarivate Analytics owns all three indexing databases in the web of science– SCI, SCIE, and ESCI. Web of Science indexes include the Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI).
• Thus, the journal indexed in the ESCI is discoverable on the Web of Science with full citation counts, author information, and other enrichment. Articles in ESCI-indexed will be included in an author’s  h -index calculation. The Hirsch index (H-index) is a distribution-based indicator of both productivity (number of papers) and impact (number of citations) in one number. Read more
• One of the biggest bibliographic databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any discipline. Scopus is provided by Elsevier and covers 71+ million scholarly items.
• In addition to, searching for research articles, Scopus also provides academic journal rankings, author profiles, and an h-index calculator. Scopus allows full access by institutional subscription only.
• Moreover, Scopus searching allows access to authoritative research, identifies experts, and provides access to reliable data, metrics, and analytical tools.  It increases the visibility of publications and allows a better representation of scholarly output, the validity of profiles, citations, and h-index scores. Read more

Google Scholar:

• Google Scholar is another database, good for conducting simple searches for scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts, and articles.
• Google Scholar is a free academic search engine, that searches all the indexed information on the web, it searches repositories of publishers, universities, or scholarly websites. Additionally, advanced Scholar search provides additional search fields such as author, publication, and date, as well as phrase matching and word exclusion. It also provides a check for citing publications and graph citations over time. Read more

Arxiv by Cornell:

• Arxiv by Cornell is an open access to scholarly articles around the world in vast fields including physics, math, and computer science with their subdisciplines including statistics, electrical engineering, quantitative biology, and economics. Moreover, Arxiv is an archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers and is not peer-reviewed. Read more

Ulrichsweb:

• Ulrichsweb is a database that contains bibliographic detailed information on more than 300,000 periodicals (also called serials) of all types: academic and scholarly journals, e-journals, peer-reviewed titles, popular magazines, newsletters, newspapers, and more. Additionally, Ulrich’s is a user-friendly searching provides serials knowledge for researchers and librarians offering records information such as ISSN, publisher, language, subject, abstracting & indexing coverage, full-text database coverage, tables of contents, and reviews. Read more

Science Direct:

• Science Direct is a most important peer-reviewed academic literature platform which provides subscription-based access to a large database of scientific and medical research. Moreover, it contains the world’s largest collection of full-text and bibliographic information on science, technology, and medicine also many articles and journals on the humanities and social sciences.
• Additionally, Science Direct is one of the subsidiaries of Elsevier. Article abstracts are freely available, but access to their full texts generally requires a pay-per-view purchase. Articles published with open access are peer-reviewed and freely available to read and download. Read more

Directory of Open Journals (DOAJ):

• DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open-access journals covering all scientific and scholarly subjects. DOAJ is a community-curated online directory where all the articles indexed are open-access, peer-reviewed, and can be accessed free of charge. Read more
• JSTOR is an archive of articles from scholarly journals and primary sources for disciplines such as arts, sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Read more

Social Sciences Databases

• SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) is a bibliographic database and cooperative electronic publishing model of open-access journals. Besides, SciELO was created to meet the scientific communication needs of developing countries and provides an efficient way to increase visibility and access to scientific literature. SciELO Citation Index helps researchers make a broader research connection. Read more
• The Education Resources Information Center is an online digital library of educational research and information, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education. ERIC is an authoritative database of indexed and full-text education literature and resources. Also, it is an essential tool for education researchers of all kinds. Moreover, it includes records for a variety of source types, including books, journal articles, conference papers, dissertations, curriculum guides, and policy papers. Read more

Medical Databases

• iCite is a tool to access a dashboard of bibliometric information for journal articles that have been included in the PubMed database. Moreover, citation data are drawn from PubMed Central, European PubMed Central, CrossRef, and Web of Science. Read more
• PubMed is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine. In addition, PubMed stores abstracts and bibliographic details of more than 30 million papers and provides full-text links to the publisher sites or links to the free PDF. Read more

Engineering Databases

INSPIRE-Hep:

• INSPIRE-HEP is an open-access digital platform for high-energy physics literature. Moreover, INSPIRE-HEP offers open access to high-energy physics-related articles, including journal papers, e-prints, preprints, technical reports, conference papers, and theses. Read more

IEEE Xplore  

• IEEE Xplore is a research database that provides access to journal articles, conference proceedings, technical standards, and related materials on computer science, electrical engineering and electronics, and allied fields. 
• In addition, IEEE provides a wide range of quality publications that allow the exchange of technical knowledge and information among technology professionals. IEEE fields include electrical engineering, computing, biotechnology, telecommunications, power and energy, and dozens of other technologies. However, access to IEEE Xplore is organizational. Read more

IMechE        

• The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is an archive that covers all aspects of mechanical engineering. This database includes technical papers, obituaries, works visits, technical drawings, meeting reports, and editorial comments, all covering some of the most influential and innovative years of engineering development. Read more

In conclusion of Literature search

• Firstly, choosing the best database depends on the type of literature to conduct, there are several types of available databases.  However, when searching for relevant and reliable references, it is advisable to use multiple databases. 
• Secondly, optimal searches in systematic reviews should search at least Web of Science and Google Scholar as a minimum requirement to guarantee adequate and efficient coverage.
• Lastly, Google Scholar is good for conducting simple searches across a broad number of databases. While for complex or in-depth searching we recommend that you search individual subject databases.
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Featured databases.

Research Databases

Communication Source is the most complete full-text research database for communication studies. It offers hundreds of top communication journals, magazines and other sources covering all related disciplines, including media studies, linguistics, speech pathology, rhetoric and discourse. 

This unique reference database cites records contained in collections of essays and miscellaneous works published in the United States, Great Britain and Canada.

Offering more peer-reviewed, full-text journals than any other database of its kind, Humanities Source Ultimate is a must-have resource for scholars and educators interested in all facets of the humanities.

MagillOnLiterature Plus is the definitive source for editorially reviewed critical analyses, character studies, author biographies and plot summaries of the most studied literary works.

Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the bibliography directs researchers to more than 3 million citations from journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, scholarly websites, editions, and translations published from the late 19 th century to the present.

This unique database indexes classic and historical plays, along with the works of contemporary playwrights. Play Index covers new editions and translations, and includes descriptive annotations to summarize the plot and indicate musical requirements.

Read It!  is designed for middle and high school students and adults who have a basic foundation in English grammar and reading but need adapted reading material for a variety of subjects. It offers resources to help build background knowledge, conduct research and improve study skills.

As multicultural communities expand, interest in language learning increases. Language programs promote inclusive participation and strengthen community connections. Rosetta Stone Library Solution meets this growing need, helping learners engage with confidence in multilingual settings.

Thanks to its detailed indexing for hundreds of thousands of short stories, this database is an essential resource for readers seeking short stories by author or genre, and for those researching the body of work of a particular literary figure.

This bibliographic database provides high-quality cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for journals encompassing the broad spectrum of linguistics and language study. It offers thousands of records with subject headings from EBSCO’s robust thesaurus, curated by subject matter experts.

Poetry & Short Story Reference Source is a rich full-text database containing thousands of classic and contemporary poems, short stories, biographies, essays, lesson plans and learning guides. It also includes high-quality videos and audio recordings from the Academy of American Poets.

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Databases: Literature: Literature Databases

• Literature Databases
• All Databases by Subject Area

Core Resources

• MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window Covers journal articles, books and dissertations. Produced by the Modern Language Association. Coverage is international and subjects include literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory & criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing. Coverage of rhetoric and composition and the history, theory and practice of teaching language and literature. Simultaneous users: 7

Additional Resources

• Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window This academic multi-disciplinary database provides than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. In addition, it offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. Coverage spans virtually every area of academic study and offers information dating as far back as 1887.
• African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 This link opens in a new window This collection features more than 170 wide-ranging periodicals by and about African Americans. Published in 26 states, the publications include academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations bulletins, annual reports and other genres.
• ARTFL (American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language) This link opens in a new window Access to databases containing the full-text of a broad range of significant books, texts, bibliographies and other works supporting the study of French language and literature.
• Arts & Humanities Citation Index This link opens in a new window Covers the scholarly journal literature in the arts and humanities. Full indexing of 1,144 leading arts and humanities journals, and of selected relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals.
• Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window A multi-faceted resource that includes: The Chicago Defender, 1909-1975, an influential historical African American newspaper; International Index to Black Periodicals, coverage from 1902 onward; Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience-- Topical overviews by leading Black Studies scholars; Dissertations-- Full-text dissertations
• Cambridge Companions Complete Collection This link opens in a new window Cambridge Collections Online includes over 600 titles, updated regularly, with emphasis on literature, classics, religion, philosophy, and cultural studies.
• Dacheng pre-1949 journals full-text database (大成 老旧刊全文数据库) This link opens in a new window Consists of approximately 7,000 Chinese periodicals published from 1830 to 1949 in all fields of knowledge as well as popular journals. A unique and valuable source for the studies of Chinese politics, history, culture, society, philosophy, literature and arts in that period.
• Shakespeare Globe on Screen 1 & 2 (Drama Online) This link opens in a new window This portal provides access to Shakespeare Globe on Screen (2008 - 2015) and Shakespeare Globe on Screen 2 (2016 - 2018). The two collections altogether feature over 20 films recorded live on the Globe stage with leading actors. Plays include "Twelfth Night," "Merchant of Venice," "Macbeth," "Romeo and Juliet," "Othello," "Measure for Measure," and others.
• Duke University Press Journals This link opens in a new window A collection of nearly 40 online journals provided by Duke University Press, primarily in the arts and humanities.
• Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 This link opens in a new window Provides full-text and full-page-image access to books, pamphlets and broadsides printed in America from 1639-1800. Based on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans (14 vols., 1903-34, 1955-59); and subsequent bibliographic works by Roger Bristol, James Mooney and Clifford Shipton. Includes more than 36,000 printed works and 2.3 million pages.
• Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 This link opens in a new window Provides full-text and full-page-image access to books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in America in the early part of the 19th century. Based on the noted “American Bibliography, 1801-1819” by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker, offers more than four million pages from over 36,000 items. Complements Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800.
• Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window EEBO contains over 100,000 books published in English since 1475. Based on Pollard & Redgrave's "Short Title Catalogue (1475-1640)" and Wing's "Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700)," plus revised editions and supplements. Subjects covered include English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, math, and science. Update: Texts continue to be added to the online version as they are scanned from the microfilm.
• EEBO TCP (Text Creation Partnership) This link opens in a new window Contains some searchable and readable editions of Early English Books (texts published in English since 1475). Based on Pollard & Redgrave's "Short Title Catalogue (1475-1640)" and Wing's "Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700)," plus revised editions and supplements. Subjects covered include English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, math, and science. For more non-searchable full text of Early English Books, see EEBO.
• Empire Online This link opens in a new window Database will contain, when complete, over 60,000 images of original manuscripts and printed documents, enabling researchers to explore colonial history, politics, culture and society. Section I (now available) examines cultural contacts throughout five centuries of Empire, from Columbus to decolonization. It draws upon sources such as diaries and eyewitness accounts of European travelers, correspondence and periodical literature.
• English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) This link opens in a new window The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) indexes English or English-language letterpress materials published in Great Britain or its colonies or in English from 1473-1800, including Pollard and Redgrave (1473-1640), Wing (1640-1700), Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, and Evans' Early American Imprints, Series I (1639-1800). Materials indexed in ESTC may be available in Early English Books Online or Literature Online, or in the microform STC collection on Gelman's third floor.
• Gender Studies Database This link opens in a new window Gender-related scholarship inside and outside academia, combining Women's Studies International, Men's Studies and Sexual Diversity Studies and relevant contributions from the Child Development and Adolescent Studies and Family and Society Studies Worldwide databases.
• HarpWeek (Harper's Weekly: 1857-1877) This link opens in a new window Searchable page images from Harper's Weekly magazine for 1857-1877, the Civil War era through Reconstruction.
• Hispanic-American Periodicals Index (HAPI) This link opens in a new window HAPI is a multi-subject index to periodical literature on Latin America and on Hispanics in the United States.
• Index Translationum This link opens in a new window The Index Translationum, begun in 1932, is an international bibliography of book translations.
• International Medieval Bibliography This link opens in a new window Provides a comprehensive, current bibliography of articles in journals and miscellany volumes (conference proceedings, essay collections or Festschriften) covering Europe, North Africa and the New East (300-1500).
• JSTOR This link opens in a new window Back issues of core scholarly journals in subjects including African-American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, classics, ecology, economics, education, finance, history, literature, mathematics, philosophy, political science, population studies, sociology, and statistics. Includes free Early-Journal Content, journals published before 1923 in the U.S. and before 1870 outside of the U.S.
• Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new window Full-text searchable digital editions of all volumes of the Loeb Classical Library currently in print, with new texts added biannually. Provides Greek and Latin text with facing English translations.
• Oxford Bibliographies Online: Literary and Critical Theory This link opens in a new window Database of interdisciplinary scholarly resources on Literary and Critical Theory. Contains current scholarship with original commentary and annotations.
• Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window Access to the definitive dictionary of the English language. Revisions and additions ongoing.
• Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window Historical (not current) coverage of thousands of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, going back to Volume 1 for most titles (in some cases, over 200 years). Full-text articles are available from several hundred titles.
• Project Muse This link opens in a new window Articles and reviews from peer-reviewed, scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences.
• Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 This link opens in a new window Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 provides indexing of over three million articles from more than 550 leading magazines, including full coverage of the original print volumes of Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. This important resource offers a wide range of researchers access to information about history, culture and seminal developments across nearly a century.
• Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism This link opens in a new window Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism brings together a wealth of interdisciplinary content about the Modernist period, and is the ideal starting point for any research in modernism. With over 1,000 articles from experts in the field, supported by over 100 images, Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism is a vital tool for students and researchers. The content is fully cross-referenced, allowing for greater discoverability between fields, and covers eight key subject areas: Literature, Architecture, Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Theatre, Film, and Intellectual Currents. Researchers can browse by subject, movement, or place in order to discover connections between key topics and fields.
• Royal Shakespeare Live Collection (Drama Online) This link opens in a new window Drama Online: Royal Shakespeare Company Live Collection
• Taiwan Academic Classics This link opens in a new window Taiwan Academic Classics offers classic works from China/Taiwan and contemporary scholarly thought from academic societies in Taiwan and around the world. The federated search platform of Taiwan Academic Classics incorporates full text searchable Web access to core journals in the humanities and social sciences from 1928 to the present with ancient compilations from China's earliest Dynasties. Taiwan Academic Classics includes authoritative archives and historic documents from the era of the Chinese Republic. Taiwan Academic Classics integrates a total of 2 billion characters, 300 different journals, 6,630 ancient works and more than 100,000 dissertations, with contributions from 35,000 authors.
• Theatre in Video: Volumes I & II This link opens in a new window From celebrated productions of Shakespeare to rare, in-depth footage of the work of Samuel Beckett, the collection covers a wide range of 20th century theatre history. Interviews with directors, designers, writers, and actors, along with excerpts of live performances, deliver an authentic, behind-the-scenes look at hundreds of productions.
• Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) This link opens in a new window The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is a research center at the University of California, Irvine. Founded in 1972, the TLG has already collected and digitized most literary texts written in Greek from Homer to the fall of Byzantium in 1453. Its goal is to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present. Includes digital versions of Greek texts, searchable in Greek, with links to English translations where available. ***Please note that the new system requires each user to create a user profile.***
• World Shakespeare Bibliography This link opens in a new window Citations to books, articles, book reviews, dissertations, theatrical productions, reviews of productions, audiovisual materials, electronic media, and other scholarly and popular materials related to Shakespeare. Includes international and non-English-language materials.

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Articles, especially those appearing in scholarly journals, are good sources of information for academic writing.

Many assignments require students to limit their search to scholarly or peer-reviewed articles. "Peer-reviewed," "scholarly," "academic," and "refereed" are often used interchangeably to describe manuscripts that undergo expert review before publication. Many academic databases. such as Ebsco Academic Search Complete and ProQuest Central, allow you to limit your search to scholarly or peer-reviewed journals.

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The Libraries have many additional articles that are suitable for research. Magazines, newspapers, and trade publications are often indexed along with scholarly journals in many databases.To include these types of materials in your search, don't select the option to limit to scholarly or peer-reviewed resources.

Want to know more about the difference between scholarly publications and popular magazines? Watch this brief video.

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• Gale Literature This link opens in a new window Cross-searches Literature Resource Center, LitFinder, and other Gale resources to provide context and critical analysis of major authors and their works.
• Gale Literary Index This link opens in a new window Gale Literary Index is a master index to the major literature products published by Gale. It combines and cross-references author names, including pseudonyms and variant names, and titles into one source.
• JSTOR This link opens in a new window Humanities, mathematics, science, and social science scholarly journals. Coverage starts at the beginning year of publication and includes all but the most recent years. UNF has access to following collections: Arts & Sciences Collections I - XV, and Life Sciences.
• Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window Biographies, bibliographies and critical analysis of the work of authors from every age and literary discipline.
• LitFinder This link opens in a new window Provides access to literary works and authors throughout history and includes full-text poems and poetry citations, as well as short stories, speeches, and plays. The database also includes secondary materials like biographies, images, and more.
• MLA International Bibliography with Full Text This link opens in a new window Scholarly articles, journals, books and dissertations covering topics in literature, modern languages, linguistics, folklore, and dramatic arts as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing.
• Project MUSE This link opens in a new window Journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics, published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window Longstanding English dictionary, including word origins and an historical thesaurus.
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Features information on literary figures from all time periods in such genres as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, and journalism. 

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• Indian J Anaesth
• v.60(9); 2016 Sep

Literature search for research planning and identification of research problem

Anju grewal.

Department of Anaesthesiology, Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab, India

Hanish Kataria

1 Department of Surgery, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India

2 Department of Cardiac Anaesthesia, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Literature search is a key step in performing good authentic research. It helps in formulating a research question and planning the study. The available published data are enormous; therefore, choosing the appropriate articles relevant to your study in question is an art. It can be time-consuming, tiring and can lead to disinterest or even abandonment of search in between if not carried out in a step-wise manner. Various databases are available for performing literature search. This article primarily stresses on how to formulate a research question, the various types and sources for literature search, which will help make your search specific and time-saving.

INTRODUCTION

Literature search is a systematic and well-organised search from the already published data to identify a breadth of good quality references on a specific topic.[ 1 ] The reasons for conducting literature search are numerous that include drawing information for making evidence-based guidelines, a step in the research method and as part of academic assessment.[ 2 ] However, the main purpose of a thorough literature search is to formulate a research question by evaluating the available literature with an eye on gaps still amenable to further research.

Research problem[ 3 ] is typically a topic of interest and of some familiarity to the researcher. It needs to be channelised by focussing on information yet to be explored. Once we have narrowed down the problem, seeking and analysing existing literature may further straighten out the research approach.

A research hypothesis[ 4 ] is a carefully created testimony of how you expect the research to proceed. It is one of the most important tools which aids to answer the research question. It should be apt containing necessary components, and raise a question that can be tested and investigated.

The literature search can be exhaustive and time-consuming, but there are some simple steps which can help you plan and manage the process. The most important are formulating the research questions and planning your search.

FORMULATING THE RESEARCH QUESTION

Literature search is done to identify appropriate methodology, design of the study; population sampled and sampling methods, methods of measuring concepts and techniques of analysis. It also helps in determining extraneous variables affecting the outcome and identifying faults or lacunae that could be avoided.

Formulating a well-focused question is a critical step for facilitating good clinical research.[ 5 ] There can be general questions or patient-oriented questions that arise from clinical issues. Patient-oriented questions can involve the effect of therapy or disease or examine advantage versus disadvantage for a group of patients.[ 6 ]

For example, we want to evaluate the effect of a particular drug (e.g., dexmedetomidine) for procedural sedation in day care surgery patients. While formulating a research question, one should consider certain criteria, referred as ‘FINER’ (F-Feasible, I-Interesting, N-Novel, E-Ethical, R-Relevant) criteria.[ 5 ] The idea should be interesting and relevant to clinical research. It should either confirm, refute or add information to already done research work. One should also keep in mind the patient population under study and the resources available in a given set up. Also the entire research process should conform to the ethical principles of research.

The patient or study population, intervention, comparison or control arm, primary outcome, timing of measurement of outcome (PICOT) is a well-known approach for framing a leading research question.[ 7 , 8 ] Dividing the questions into key components makes it easy and searchable. In this case scenario:

• Patients (P) – What is the important group of patients? for example, day care surgery
• Intervention (I) – What is the important intervention? for example, intravenous dexmedetomidine
• Comparison (C) – What is the important intervention of comparison? for example, intravenous ketamine
• Outcome (O) – What is the effect of intervention? for example, analgesic efficacy, procedural awareness, drug side effects
• Time (T) – Time interval for measuring the outcome: Hourly for first 4 h then 4 hourly till 24 h post-procedure.

Multiple questions can be formulated from patient's problem and concern. A well-focused question should be chosen for research according to significance for patient interest and relevance to our knowledge. Good research questions address the lacunae in available literature with an aim to impact the clinical practice in a constructive manner. There are limited outcome research and relevant resources, for example, electronic database system, database and hospital information system in India. Even when these factors are available, data about existing resources is not widely accessible.[ 9 ]

TYPES OF MEDICAL LITERATURE

(Further details in chapter ‘Types of studies and research design’ in this issue).

Primary literature

Primary sources are the authentic publication of an expert's new evidence, conclusions and proposals (case reports, clinical trials, etc) and are usually published in a peer-reviewed journal. Preliminary reports, congress papers and preprints also constitute primary literature.[ 2 ]

Secondary literature

Secondary sources are systematic review articles or meta-analyses where material derived from primary source literature are infererred and evaluated.[ 2 ]

Tertiary literature

Tertiary literature consists of collections that compile information from primary or secondary literature (eg., reference books).[ 2 ]

METHODS OF LITERATURE SEARCH

There are various methods of literature search that are used alone or in combination [ Table 1 ]. For past few decades, searching the local as well as national library for books, journals, etc., was the usual practice and still physical literature exploration is an important component of any systematic review search process.[ 10 , 11 ] With the advancement of technology, the Internet is now the gateway to the maze of vast medical literature.[ 12 ] Conducting a literature review involves web-based search engines, i.e., Google, Google Scholar, etc., [ Table 2 ], or using various electronic research databases to identify materials that describe the research topic or those homologous to it.[ 13 , 14 ]

Methods of literature search

Web based methods of literature search

The various databases available for literature search include databases for original published articles in the journals [ Table 2 ] and evidence-based databases for integrated information available as systematic reviews and abstracts [ Table 3 ].[ 12 , 14 ] Most of these are not freely available to the individual user. PubMed ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ ) is the largest available resource since 1996; however, a large number of sources now provide free access to literature in the biomedical field.[ 15 ] More than 26 million citations from Medline, life science journals and online books are included in PubMed. Links to the full-text material are included in citations from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.[ 16 ] The choice of databases depends on the subject of interest and potential coverage by the different databases. Education Resources Information Centre is a free online digital library of education research and information sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, available at http://eric.ed.gov/ . No one database can search all the medical literature. There is need to search several different databases. At a minimum, PubMed or Medline, Embase and the Cochrane central trials Registry need to be searched. When searching these databases, emphasis should be given to meta-analysis, systematic reviews randomised controlled trials and landmark studies.

Electronic source of Evidence-Based Database

Time allocated to the search needs attention as exploring and selecting data are early steps in the research method and research conducted as part of academic assessment have narrow timeframes.[ 17 ] In Indian scenario, limited outcome research and accessibility to data leads to less thorough knowledge of nature of research problem. This results in the formulation of the inappropriate research question and increases the time to literature search.

TYPES OF SEARCH

Type of search can be described in different forms according to the subject of interest. It increases the chances of retrieving relevant information from a search.

Translating research question to keywords

This will provide results based on any of the words specified; hence, they are the cornerstone of an effective search. Synonyms/alternate terms should be considered to elicit further information, i.e., barbiturates in place of thiopentone. Spellings should also be taken into account, i.e., anesthesia in place of anaesthesia (American and British). Most databases use controlled word-stock to establish common search terms (or keywords). Some of these alternative keywords can be looked from database thesaurus.[ 4 ] Another strategy is combining keywords with Boolean operators. It is important to keep a note of keywords and methods used in exploring the literature as these will need to be described later in the design of search process.

‘Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) is the National Library of Medicine's controlled hierarchical vocabulary that is used for indexing articles in PubMed, with more specific terms organised underneath more general terms’.[ 17 ] This provides a reliable way to retrieve citations that use different terminology for identical ideas, as it indexes articles based on content. Two features of PubMed that can increase yield of specific articles are ‘Automatic term mapping’ and ‘automatic term explosion’.[ 4 ]

For example, if the search keyword is heart attack, this term will match with MeSH transcription table heading and then explode into various subheadings. This helps to construct the search by adding and selecting MeSH subheadings and families of MeSH by use of hyperlinks.[ 4 ]

We can set limits to a clinical trial for retrieving higher level of evidence (i.e., randomised controlled clinical trial). Furthermore, one can browse through the link entitled ‘Related Articles’. This PubMed feature searches for similar citations using an intricate algorithm that scans titles, abstracts and MeSH terms.[ 4 ]

Phrase search

This will provide pages with only the words typed in the phrase, in that exact order and with no words in between them.

Boolean operators

AND, OR and NOT are the three Boolean operators named after the mathematician George Boole.[ 18 ] Combining two words using ‘AND’ will fetch articles that mention both the words. Using ‘OR’ will widen the search and fetch more articles that mention either subject. While using the term ‘NOT’ to combine words will fetch articles containing the first word but not the second, thus narrowing the search.

Filters can also be used to refine the search, for example, article types, text availability, language, age, sex and journal categories.

Overall, the recommendations for methodology of literature search can be as below (Creswell)[ 19 ]

• Identify keywords and use them to search articles from library and internet resources as described above
• Search several databases to search articles related to your topic
• Use thesaurus to identify terms to locate your articles
• Find an article that is similar to your topic; then look at the terms used to describe it, and use them for your search
• Use databases that provide full-text articles (free through academic libraries, Internet or for a fee) as much as possible so that you can save time searching for your articles
• If you are examining a topic for the first time and unaware of the research on it, start with broad syntheses of the literature, such as overviews, summaries of the literature on your topic or review articles
• Start with the most recent issues of the journals, and look for studies about your topic and then work backward in time. Follow-up on references at the end of the articles for more sources to examine
• Refer books on a single topic by a single author or group of authors or books that contain chapters written by different authors
• Next look for recent conference papers. Often, conference papers report the latest research developments. Contact authors of pertinent studies. Write or phone them, asking if they know of studies related to your area of interest
• The easy access and ability to capture entire articles from the web make it attractive. However, check these articles carefully for authenticity and quality and be cautious about whether they represent systematic research.

The whole process of literature search[ 20 ] is summarised in Figure 1 .

Process of literature search

Literature search provides not only an opportunity to learn more about a given topic but provides insight on how the topic was studied by previous analysts. It helps to interpret ideas, detect shortcomings and recognise opportunities. In short, systematic and well-organised research may help in designing a novel research.

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Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

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A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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• Information on citation databases
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• Useful tips and tricks on how to best make use of them

Here are some definitions of common terms made use of by citation databases

• Bibliometrics is the statistical analysis of scholarly output like articles, book chapters, and reviews.
• Altmetrics: is the statistical analysis of alternative forms of capture such as twitter impressions of a piece of scholarly output.

Some common metrics are the H-index, Journal Impact Factor, and the FWCI (called CNCI in Web of Science).

• H-Index is a measure of how many times a journals published articles are cited, an index of fifteen means an article has been cited 15 times.
• Journal Impact Factor (IF) – A measurement of how many times a journal’s published articles are cited by different researchers.
• FWCI – Publication Field weighted citation indices indicate how the number of citations received by researcher’s publications compared to the average number for similar publications.
• Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) – Calculated using Web of Science, CNCI is “an indicator of impact normalized for subject focus, age and document type. A CNCI of 1 is at par with the world average, anything above 2 is twice the global average
• SJR - Scimago Journal Rank is a measure of the "prestige" of journals which makes use of both the number of citations a journal accrues and the perception of those journals in the wider academic community
• SNIP - Source Normalized Impact per Paper is a metric which accounts for the field specific differences between journals. The need for this is that some fields have different publishing practices, time frames, and constraints. This results in the need for a metric like SNIP which is calculated by comparing the citations per journal with the citation potential of the field as a whole, in other words it would measure of history journal against other history journals and vice versa for other academic disciplines

Here are the five most common Citation Databases' Key Strengths and Use Cases

• Web of Science: Core Collection Access the world’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities and examine proceedings of international conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions. -Science Citation Index Expanded (1900-present) -Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present) -Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present) -Conference Proceedings Citation Index- Science (1990-present) -Conference Proceedings Citation Index- Social Science & Humanities (1990-present) -Book Citation Index– Science (2005-present) -Book Citation Index– Social Sciences & Humanities (2005-present) -Current Chemical Reactions (1985-present) (Includes Institut National de la Propriete Industrielle structure data back to 1840) -Index Chemicus (1993-present) -Emerging Sources Citation Index (2005 – present)
• Google Scholar Searches for scholarly materials such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from broad areas of research. It includes a variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.
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Research projects often require you to look close up at a body of research produced by scholars in a particular field.  This research is typically collected, codified, and made findable in a tool called a  subject database .

Every academic discipline has at least one subject database that's considered the disciplinary gold standard -- a reliable, (relatively) comprehensive, and accurate record of the books that scholars are publishing, and the ideas they're debating and discussing in important and influential journals. 

Databases are like lenses: they change what you see and how you see it -- and they offer you easy and efficient ways to bring your questions into sharper focus.

Philosophy 

Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy .

• Excellent for overview essays written by recognized subject experts and prominent academics, and accompanied by bibliography leads. 

Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy    Harvard Key  

• Annotated reading lists curated by experts, regularly checked for their currency and updated when necessary, OBOs aim to be representative, not comprehensive -- of the most impactful scholarship that's been produced to date. 
• An online databas of scholarship  maintained by philosophers themselves that collects, categorizes, and makes philosophy research findable.  Specially curated pages perhaps pertinent to course themes include Philosophy of Language (which identifies key works and key introductory texts); Philosophy of Literature ; and Literary Values .

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• A database that identifies articles, books, and other scholarly materials on linguistics and its related fields. 

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Oxford bibliographies online: language (psychology) , apa psycinfo    harvard key .

• The most important database access to research on all aspects of psychology,

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Johns hopkins guide to literary theory and criticism    harvard key .

• A comprehensive survey of the the most important figures, schools, and movements in literary theory.

Oxford Bibliographies Online: Literary and Cultural Theory   Harvard Key 

Mla international bibliography     harvard key .

• The gold standard database for topics related to literature in all languages, folklore, cultural studies, theory, and more. 

Multidisciplinary 

Google scholar.

Although it's not a Harvard Library "database,"  Google Scholar  is perfectly acceptable for most general forays into scholarship; its algorithms are excellent and do return relevant results.

One of the best ways to generate research leads with Scholar is to use it to follow  citation trails    when you have a known source -- a class reading, a book you've found on HOLLIS that looks promising, an article that's so "perfect" for a research project that you want to see if there's "more like it" out there, waiting to be discovered. 

For example: 

• You can click on  cited by   to see which scholars picked up and used a research article/book in research. Just enter the title.
• Big "cited by" lists can be whittled down by adding keywords and clicking on the   search within cited reference  option.
• Related articles  helps you identify r esearch that's close ----algorithmically, at least -- to the item you started with. 
• Authors whose names are hotlinked reveal publications pages -- where you migth find additional/related publications (and see their times cited, too!)
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Active involvement in scientific research of persons living with dementia and long-term care users: a systematic review of existing methods with a specific focus on good practices, facilitators and barriers of involvement

• Janneke M. Groothuijse 1 , 2 ,
• Lisa S. van Tol 1 , 2 ,
• C. C. M. (Toos) Hoeksel-van Leeuwen 1 , 2 ,
• Johannes J. M. van Delden 3 ,
• Monique A. A. Caljouw 1 , 2 &
• Wilco P. Achterberg 1 , 2  

BMC Geriatrics volume  24 , Article number:  324 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

72 Accesses

Metrics details

Active involvement of persons living with dementia (PLWD) and long-term care (LTC) users in research is essential but less developed compared to other patient groups. However, their involvement in research is not only important but also feasible. This study aims to provide an overview of methods, facilitators, and barriers for involving PLWD and LTC users in scientific research.

A systematic literature search across 12 databases in December 2020 identified studies involving PLWD, LTC users, or their carers beyond research subjects and describing methods or models for involvement. Qualitative descriptions of involvement methods underwent a risk of bias assessment using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) Qualitative Checklist 2018. A data collection sheet in Microsoft Excel and thematic analysis were used to synthesize the results.

The eighteen included studies delineated five core involvement methods spanning all research phases: advisory groups, formal and informal research team meetings, action groups, workshops, and co-conducting interviews. Additionally, two co-research models with PLWD and carers were found, while only two studies detailed LTC user involvement methods. Four distinct involvement roles were identified: consulting and advisory roles, co-analysts, co-researchers, and partners. The review also addressed barriers, facilitators, and good practices in the preparation, execution, and translation phases of research, emphasizing the importance of diversity, bias reduction, and resource allocation. Trust-building, clear roles, ongoing training, and inclusive support were highlighted.

Conclusions

Planning enough time for active involvement is important to ensure that researchers have time to build a trusting relationship and meet personal needs and preferences of PLWD, LTC users and carers. Researchers are advised not to presume the meaning of burden and to avoid a deficit perspective. A flexible or emergent design could aid involved persons’ ownership of the research process.

Trial registration

Prospero 2021: CRD42021253736.

Peer Review reports

In research characterized by active involvement, the target group plays a pivotal role in shaping research decisions and outcomes, directly impacting them. Involving patients in health research offers significant benefits [ 1 , 2 ]: it enhances participant recruitment [ 2 ], refines research questions [ 2 ], aligns study results with the target population [ 1 , 2 ], and promotes effective implementation of findings [ 1 ]. Active involvement of patients has also benefits for themselves, namely an enhanced understanding of research, building relationships, personal development, improved health and wellbeing, and enjoyment and satisfaction [ 3 , 4 ]. It gives them a sense of purpose and satisfaction through their tangible impact.

However, for long-term care (LTC) users and persons living with dementia (PLWD) active involvement in research is less developed than for other patient groups [ 5 , 6 ]. PLWD and LTC users share similar care needs, encompassing assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs), medication management, medical condition monitoring, and emotional support. Furthermore, a substantial portion of LTC users comprises individuals living with dementia [ 7 ]. Additionally, statistical data from the United States reveals that one in four older individuals is likely to reside in long-term care (LTC) facilities [ 8 ], and approximately forty to eighty percent of LTC residents in the United States, Japan, Australia, and England experience dementia or severe memory problems [ 7 , 9 ].

Due to these considerations, we have chosen to combine the target audiences of PLWD and LTC users in our systematic review. However, it's important to note that while there are potential advantages to combining these target groups, there may also be challenges. PLWD and LTC users may have varying needs, preferences, and experiences, including differences in care requirements driven by individual factors like the stage of dementia, coexisting conditions, and personal preferences. Therefore, it's imperative to conduct comprehensive research and involve these communities to ensure that involvement approaches are not only inclusive but also tailored to meet their specific requirements.

Given our ageing population and the intricate health challenges faced by PLWD and LTC users, including their vulnerability and shorter life expectancy in old age, it's crucial to establish effective research involvement methods. These individuals have unique needs and preferences that require attention. They possess a voice, and as researchers, it is our responsibility to not only listen to them but also actively involve them in the research process. Consequently, it is essential to identify means through which the voices of PLWD and LTC users can be effectively heard and ensure that their input is incorporated into research.

Fortunately, publication of studies on involvement of PLWD and LTC users in scientific research is slowly increasing [ 5 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. A few reviews have described how PLWD and LTC users were involved [ 5 , 9 , 10 ]. However, with the increasing attention for involvement, the understanding of when involvement is meaningful grows and stricter requirements can be imposed to increase the quality of active involvement [ 12 , 13 ]. To our knowledge there is no up to date overview of involvement methods used with either or both PLWD and LTC users. Such an overview of involvement methods for PWLD and LTC users would provide a valuable, comprehensive resource encompassing various stages of the research cycle and different aspects of involvement. It would equip researchers with the necessary guidance to navigate the complexities of involving PLWD and LTC users in their research projects.

Recognizing the need to enhance the involvement of PLWD and LTC users in scientific research, this systematic review aims to construct a comprehensive overview of the multiple methodologies employed in previous studies, along with an examination of the facilitators and barriers of involvement. Our overarching goal is to promote inclusive and effective involvement practices within the research community. To achieve this objective, this review will address the following questions: (1) What kind of methods are used and how are these methods implemented to facilitate involvement of PLWD and LTC users in scientific research? (2) What are the facilitators and barriers encountered in previous research projects involving PLWD and LTC users?

Protocol and registration

The search and analysis methods were specified in advance in a protocol. The protocol is registered and published in the PROSPERO database with registration number CRD42021253736. The search and analysis methods are also described below more briefly.

Information sources, search strategy, and eligibility criteria

In preparation of the systematic literature search, key articles and reviews about involvement of PLWD and LTC users in research were screened to identify search terms. In addition, Thesaurus and MeSH terms were used to broaden the search. The search was conducted on December 10, 2020, across multiple databases: PubMed, Medline, Embase, Emcare, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, Social Services Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. The search terms were entered in "phrases". The search strategy included synonymous and related terms for dementia, LTC user, involvement, research, method, and long-term care. The full search strategy is provided in supplement 1 .

After conducting the search, records underwent initial screening based on titles and abstracts. Selected reports were retrieved for full-text assessment, and studies were evaluated for eligibility based on several criteria. However, no restriction was made regarding publication date. First, to be included studies had to be written in English, German, French, or Dutch. Second, we only included original research studies. Third, studies were excluded when the target group or their representatives were not involved in research, but only participated as research subjects. Fourth, studies were excluded when not describing involvement in research. Therefore, studies concerning involvement in care, policy, or self-help groups were excluded. Fifth, the focus of this systematic review is on methods. Therefore, studies with a main focus on the results, evaluation, ethical issues, and impact of involvement in research were excluded. Additionally, we have not set specific inclusion or exclusion criteria based on study design since our primary focus is on involvement methodologies, regardless of the chosen research design. Sixth, the included studies had to concern the involvement in research of PLWD or adult LTC users, whether living in the community or in institutional settings, as well as informal caregivers or other representatives of these groups who may represent PLWD and LTC users facing limitations. Studies that involved LTC users that were children or ‘young adults’, or their representatives, were excluded. Studies were also excluded if they involved mental healthcare users if it remained unclear if the care that they received entailed more than only treatment from mental healthcare providers, but for example also assistance with ADL.

Terminology

For readability purposes, we use the abbreviation PLWD to refer to persons diagnosed with dementia, and we use the abbreviation LTC users to refer to persons receiving long-term care, at home or as residents living in nursing homes or other residential facilities. We use the term carers to refer to informal caregivers and other representatives of either PLWD or LTC users. As clear and consistent definitions regarding participatory research remains elusive [ 14 , 15 ], we formulated a broad working definition of involvement in research so as not to exclude any approach to participatory research. We defined involvement in research as “research carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ the target group” [ 16 ], where the target group or their representatives take part in the governance or conduct of research and have some degree of ownership of the research [ 12 ]. It concerns involvement in research in which lived experienced experts work alongside research teams. We use the terms participation and participants, to refer to people being part of the research as study subjects.

Selection process, data-collection process, and data items

Titles and abstracts were independently screened by the first and second author (JG and LT). Only the studies that both reviewers agreed and met the inclusion criteria were included in the full-text screening process. Any uncertainty about whether the studies truly described a model or approach for involvement, was resolved by a quick screening of the full-text paper. The full-text screening process was then conducted according to the same procedure by JG and LT. Any disagreement was resolved by discussion until consensus was reached. If no agreement could be reached, a third researcher (MC) was consulted. References of the included studies were screened for any missing papers.

The following information was collected on a data collection sheet in Microsoft Excel: year and country of publication, topic, research aim, study design, living situation of involved persons (at home or institutionalized), description of involved persons, study participants (study subjects), theories and methods used, type/role(s) of involvement, research phase(s), recruitment, consent approach, study setting, structure of participatory activities, training, resources, facilitators, barriers, ethics, benefits, impact, and definition of involvement used.

JG independently extracted data from all included studies, the involved co-researcher (THL) independently extracted data from two studies, the second author (LT) from five. Differences in the analysis were discussed with the co-researcher (THL) and second author (LT) until consensus was reached. As only minor differences emerged, limited to the facilitator and barrier categories, data from the remaining studies was extracted by JG.

Risk of bias assessment

Every research article identified through the systematic review exclusively comprised qualitative descriptions of the involvement method(s) employed. Consequently, all articles underwent evaluation using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) Qualitative Checklist 2018 [ 17 ], as opposed to the checklists intended for quantitative or mixed methods research. All included studies were independently assessed on quality by two reviewers (JG,LT) and any disagreement was resolved by discussion until consensus was reached. The CASP Qualitative Checklist consists of ten questions. The checklist does not provide suggestions on scoring, the first author designed a scoring system: zero points if no description was provided (‘no’), one point if a minimal description was provided (‘can’t tell’) and two points when the question was answered sufficiently (‘yes’). The second question of the checklist, “is a qualitative methodology appropriate”, was not applicable to the aims (i.e., to describe involvement) of the included studies and was therefore excluded. The tenth question was translated into a ‘yes’, ‘can’t tell’, or ‘no’ score to fit the scoring system. A maximum of eighteen points could be assigned.

Synthesis methods

Tables were used to summarize the findings and to acquire an overview of (1) the kinds of methods used to enable involvement of PLWD, LTC users, or carers in scientific research, and (2) the facilitators and barriers for involving this target group in scientific research. As to the first research aim, the headings of the first two tables are based on the Guidance for Reporting Involvement of Patients and the Public, long form version 2 (GRIPP2-LF) [ 18 ]. Because our systematic review focusses on methods, only the topics belonging to sections two, three, and four were included. Following Shippee et al., three main research phases were distinguished: preparation, execution, and translation [ 19 ]. Furthermore, the following fields were added to the GRIPP2-LF: First author, year of publication, country of study, setting of involvement, frequency of meetings, and a summary description of activities.

Concerning the second research aim, the extracted facilitators, barriers, and good practices were imported per study in ATLAS.ti for qualitative data analysis. Following the method for thematic synthesis of qualitative studies in systematic reviews [ 20 ], all imported barriers, facilitators and good practices were inductively coded staying 'close' to the results of the original studies, which resulted in 50 initial codes. After multiple rounds of pile sorting [ 21 ], based on similarities and differences and discussions in the research team, this long code list was grouped into a total of 27 categories, which were thereafter subsequently organized into 14 descriptive themes within the three research phases (preparation, execution, translation).

Study selection and characteristics

The Prisma Flow Diagram was used to summarize the study selection process [ 22 ]. In the full text screening, 72 of the 93 remaining studies were excluded because they were not original research articles (n = 5), not about involvement (n = 8), not about involvement in a research project (n = 1), they did not describe a model or method for involvement (n = 34), or they were not about PLWD or LTC users (n = 24). The search resulted in 18 publications eligible for analysis (Fig.  1 ).

Preferred Reporting items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram

Table 1 presents the general study characteristics. Two studies explicitly aimed to develop a model for involvement or good practice, and both focus on co-research either with PLWD [ 23 ] or their carers [ 13 ]. The other sixteen provide a description of the involvement of PLWD [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ] or LTC users in their research projects [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ].

Quality assessment

Table 1 presents the CASP-score per study [ 17 ]. Five scored 16 to 18 points [ 13 , 28 , 29 , 32 , 35 ], indicating high quality with robust methods, clear aims, and strong data analysis. Eleven scored 12 to 15 [ 23 , 24 , 26 , 30 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ], showing generally strong methodologies but with some limitations. Two scored 9 or lower [ 25 , 27 ], signifying significant methodological and analytical shortcomings. Notably, these low-scoring studies were short articles lacking clear recommendations for involvement in research.

Design and implementation of involvement

Phases and methods of involvement.

Table 2 describes the involvement methods used for and the implementation of involvement in research. The included studies jointly presented methods for involvement in the three main research phases [ 19 ]. Regarding the preparation phase, which involves the preparatory work for the study, only three studies provided detailed descriptions of the methods employed [ 26 , 30 , 32 ]. The execution phase, encompassing the actual conduct of the research, was most frequently discussed [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. Five studies addressed the translation phase [ 13 , 25 , 31 , 36 , 37 ], where the focus shifts to translating research findings into actionable outcomes.

The eighteen studies introduced a variety of involvement methods, categorizable into five groups: 1) advisory groups, 2) research team meetings (both formal and informal), 3) action groups, 4) workshops, and 5) co-research in interviews. In five studies, individuals including PLWD, LTCF residents, carers, and health professionals participated in advisory/reference groups [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 32 ], working groups [ 27 ], and panels [ 28 ]. These groups offered valuable feedback on research aspects, spanning protocols, design, questionnaires, and implementation of research. Meetings occurred at varying frequencies - monthly, quarterly, or biannually.

Two studies exemplify diverse research collaboration settings. One involving older individuals within an academic research team of five [ 37 ], and another featuring a doctoral student and a co-researcher conducting informal monthly discussions at a local coffee shop [ 31 ]. Brown et al. sought to minimize power differentials and enhance inclusivity [ 37 ], while Mann and Hung focused on benefiting people with dementia and challenging negative discourse on dementia [ 31 ].

An additional five studies employed methods involving frequent meetings, including action [ 35 , 39 ], inquiry [ 23 ], and discussion groups [ 29 , 36 ] In these groups, involved persons with lived experience contributed to developing a shared vision and community improvements, such as enhancing the mealtime experience in care facilities [ 35 ].

Seven studies involved individuals through workshops, often conducted over one or two sessions. These workshops contributed to generating recommendations [ 37 ], informing future e-health designs [ 29 , 30 ], and ensuring diverse perspectives and lived experiences were included in data analysis [ 13 , 24 , 32 , 33 ]. In three studies, representatives worked as co-researchers in interviews, drawing on personal experiences to enhance the interview process, making it more dementia-appropriate and enriching data collection [ 13 , 32 , 34 ]. Finally, one study involved representatives in the recruitment and conduct of interviews [ 38 ].

People involved

The number of persons involved varied from a single co-researcher [ 31 ] to 34 panel individuals providing feedback on their experiences in a clinical trial [ 28 ]. Thirteen studies focussed on PLWD: eleven involved PLWD themselves [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ], one exclusively focused on caregivers [ 13 ], and another one involved people without or with mild cognitive impairment, who participated in a study examining the risks of developing Alzheimer's disease [ 28 ]. Although not all articles provided descriptions of the dementia stage, available information indicated that individuals involved typically fell within the early to mid-stages of dementia [ 29 , 30 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Next to PLWD and carers, two studies additionally involved organizational or advocacy representatives [ 25 , 27 ]. The other five studies concerned older adults living in a LTC facility. Two of them involved older residents themselves [ 35 , 39 ], the other three carers, older community/client representatives or health care practitioners [ 36 , 37 , 38 ].

Roles and level of involvement

Four general roles could be identified. First, consultation and advisory roles were held by PLWD and carers [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 32 ], where involved persons share knowledge and experiences to make suggestions [ 32 ], but the research team retained formal decision-making power [ 25 ]. Second, PLWD were involved as co-analysts in data analysis [ 24 , 32 , 33 ]. Co-analysts influence data analysis, but the decision-making power remained with academic researchers [ 24 ]. Third, in six studies the co-researcher role was part of the research design in which involved persons and researchers steer and conduct research together [ 13 , 23 , 31 , 32 , 34 , 36 ]. Finally, two studies partnered with LTC residents [ 35 , 39 ], with residents at the core of the group, and positioned as experts by experience [ 39 ]. Residents had the decision-making authority regarding how to improve life in LTC facilities [ 35 ].

Models for involvement in research

Only two studies designed a model for co-research with PLWD [ 23 ] or their carers [ 13 ] across all research phases. These models underscored the importance of iterative training for co-researchers [ 13 , 23 ] and academic researchers [ 23 ]. Furthermore, these studies advocate involving co-researchers early on in the research process [ 13 ] and in steering committees [ 23 ]. Co-researchers can be involved in designing research materials [ 23 ], conducting interviews [ 13 , 23 ], analysing data [ 13 ], and co-disseminating findings [ 13 , 23 ]. Additionally, one study stressed involving PLWD in identifying (future) research priorities [ 23 ].

Barriers, facilitators, and good practices in research phases

Preparation phase.

Table 3 describes the barriers, facilitators, and good practices per main research phase. Lack of diversity in ethnicity and stages of dementia in the recruitment of involved persons is mentioned as a recurring barrier [ 26 , 28 , 32 , 33 ]. The exclusion of people with cognitive impairments is partly due to gatekeepers’ and recruiters’ bias towards cognitively healthy people [ 28 , 32 ]. It is stressed that researchers should refrain from making assumptions about the abilities of PLWD and ask the person what he/she is willing to do [ 31 ]. It is considered good practice to involve people regardless of cognitive abilities [ 23 ], based on skills, various personal characteristics [ 13 ] and, if possible, relevant prior experience [ 38 ].

Many studies stress the importance of building a mutual trusting relationship between involved persons and academic researchers [ 13 , 23 , 31 , 33 , 34 , 37 ]. A good relationship is believed to break down social barriers [ 37 ], foster freedom of expression [ 33 ], and thereby avoiding tokenistic involvement [ 13 ]. In addition, spending time with these persons is important to become familiar with an individual’s strengths and limitations [ 31 ].

Opting for naturally evolving involvement roles was mentioned as a barrier, as this may result in conflicting expectations and irrelevant tasks [ 37 ]. A clear role description and clarification of tasks is key to balancing potentially different expectations of the involved persons and researchers [ 26 , 28 , 29 , 32 , 38 ]. When designing a role for involvement in research, good practices dictate taking into account personal skills, preferences, development goals, and motivation for involvement [ 13 , 32 ]. This role should ideally be designed in collaboration with involved persons [ 13 , 32 ].

The perception of providing training to involved persons is ambivalent. Studies cited that training should not aim to transform them into “pseudo-scientist” [ 32 , 37 ] and that it raises the costs for involvement [ 28 ]. However, multiple scholars emphasize the importance of providing iterative training to facilitate meaningful involvement and development opportunities [ 13 , 23 , 28 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 36 , 37 ]. Training can empower involved persons to engage in the research process equally and with confidence, with the skills to fulfil their role [ 13 , 33 , 38 ]. However, the implementation of training may present a potential conflict with the fundamental principle of valuing experiential knowledge [ 37 ] and should avoid the objective of transforming co-researchers into 'expert' researchers [ 32 ]. Academic researchers should also be offered training on how to facilitate meaningful involvement [ 13 , 23 , 28 , 31 ].

Limited time and resources were mentioned as barriers to involvement that can delay the research process [ 13 , 33 , 36 , 39 ], restrict the involvement [ 28 ] and hinder the implementation of developed ideas [ 39 ]. Financial compensation for involvement is encouraged [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 32 ], as it acknowledges the contribution of involved persons [ 13 ]. Thus, meaningful involvement in research requires adequate funding and infrastructure to support the involvement activities [ 13 , 28 , 33 , 37 ].

Execution phase

The use of academic jargon and rapid paced discussions [ 13 , 37 ], power differentials, and the dominant discourse in biomedical research on what is considered “good science” can limit the impact of involvement [ 13 , 24 , 32 , 36 , 37 ]. Facilitating researchers should reflect on power differentials [ 35 ] and how decision-making power is shared [ 31 ]. Other facilitating factors are making a glossary of terms used and planning separate meetings for “technical topics” [ 37 ]. In addition, an emergent research design [ 35 ] or a design with flexible elements [ 28 ] can increase ownership in the research project and provide space for involvement to inform the research agenda [ 28 , 35 ]. This requires academic researchers to value experiential knowledge and to have an open mind towards the evolving research process [ 13 , 23 , 31 ].

Furthermore, managing the involvement process and ensuring equity in the collaboration [ 13 , 32 , 33 ], facilitating researchers must encourage involved persons to voice their perspectives. This means that they sometimes need to be convinced that they are experts of lived experience [ 32 , 33 , 36 , 37 , 39 ]. To enable involvement of PLWD, the use of visual and creative tools to prompt memories can be considered [ 24 , 30 , 33 , 34 ], as well as flexibility in relation to time frames and planning regular breaks to avoid too fast a pace for people who may tire easily [ 24 , 25 , 29 , 30 ].

Involvement can be experienced as stressful [ 13 , 32 , 38 ] and caring responsibilities may interfere [ 26 ]. Tailored [ 29 ] physical and emotional support should therefore be offered [ 13 , 23 , 38 ] without making assumptions about the meaning of burden [ 30 , 31 ]. Moreover, being the only PLWD involved in an advisory group was experienced as intimidating [ 25 ] and, ideally, a larger team of PLWD is involved to mitigate responsibilities [ 37 ]. PLWD having a focal point of contact [ 28 , 37 ] and involving nurses or other staff with experience working with PLWD and their carers [ 29 , 30 ] are mentioned as being beneficial. Some stress the importance of involving carers when engaging with PLWD in research [ 25 , 29 , 30 ].

To avoid an overload of information that is shared with the involved persons, tailoring information-sharing formats to individual preferences and abilities is essential to make communication effective [ 27 , 37 ].

Translation

Two studies indicated a need for more robust evaluation measures to assess the effect of involvement [ 28 , 33 ]. Reflection and evaluation of the involvement serves to improve the collaboration and to foster introspective learning [ 13 , 23 , 26 , 31 ]. The included studies evaluated involvement through the use of reflective diaries [ 13 ] or a template [ 38 ] with open-ended questions [ 33 ].

Two studies postulate that findings should benefit and be accessible to PLWD [ 23 , 31 ]. The use of creative tools not only enables involvement of PLWD, but can also increase accessibility of research findings and expand the present representation of PLWD [ 23 ].

The 18 included studies presented multiple methods for involvement in all three research phases. We found five types of involvement: advisory groups, (formal and informal) research team meetings, action groups, workshops, and co-conducting interviews. Only two studies described methods for involvement of LTC users in research. Involved persons were most often involved in consulting and advisory roles, but also as co-analysts, co-researchers, and partners. Involved persons’ roles can evolve and change over time. Especially as involved persons grow into their role, and gain confidence and knowledge of the specific research project, a more active role with shared responsibilities can become part of the research project. In addition, multiple involvement roles can be used throughout the research depending on the research phase.

Compared to the five types of involvement that we identified, other literature reviews about involvement methods for LTC users and PLWD in research also described advisory groups [ 10 ] and workshops [ 5 , 11 ], and methods that were similar to research team meetings (drop-in sessions and meetings [ 11 ]). Methods for action research (action groups) and co-conducting research (interviews) were not included by these other review studies. In addition to our findings, these other reviews also described as involvement methods interviews and focus groups [ 5 , 10 ] surveys [ 10 ], reader consultation [ 11 ]. Those types of methods were excluded from our study, because our definition of involvement is more strict; collecting opinions is not involvement per se, but sometimes only study participation. Moreover, compared to these previous reviews we set a high standard for transparency about the participation methods and the level of detail at which they are described.

Engaging the target group in research, particularly when collaborating with PLWD, LTC users, and carers, involves navigating unforeseen challenges [ 40 ]. This requires academic researchers to carefully balance academic research goals and expectations, and the expectations, personal circumstances and development goals related to the involved person. The aim is to maximize involvement while being attentive to the individual’s needs and avoiding a deficit perspective. Effective communication should be established, promoting respect, equality, and regular feedback between all stakeholders, including individuals living with dementia and LTCF staff. Building a mutual trusting relationship between involved persons and academic researchers through social interaction and clear communication is key to overcome barriers and ensure meaningful involvement. Inclusivity and empowerment, along with fostering an environment where diverse voices are heard, are crucial for the success of involvement in research. Our results are in line with a recent study concerning the experiences of frail older persons with involvement in research, confirming the importance of avoiding stereotypic views of ageing and frailty, building a trusting relationship, and being sensitive to older persons’ preferences and needs [ 41 ].

Furthermore, our results show that training academic researchers and involved persons is essential to develop the skills to facilitate involvement and to fulfil their role with confidence, respectively. Whilst the need for training is acknowledged by others [ 41 , 42 ], there are legitimate objections to the idea of training involved persons, as the professionalization underpinning the concept of training is at odds with voicing a lay perspective [ 43 , 44 ]. Furthermore, it is argued that experiential knowledge is compromised when training is structured according to the dominant professional epistemology of objectivity [ 45 ]. Therefore, training of involved persons should not focus on what researchers think they ought to know, but on what they want to learn [ 41 ].

Academic culture was frequently mentioned as a barrier to meaningful involvement. This result resonates with the wider debate related to involvement in health research which is concerned about active or “authentic involvement” being replaced with the appropriation of the patient voice as an add-on to conventional research designs [ 12 , 46 ]. It is argued that such tokenistic involvement limits the involved persons’ ability to shape research outcomes [ 46 ]. To reduce tokenism requires a culture shift [ 13 ]. We believe that due to the strict definition of involvement and high transparency standard used in this review, tokenistic approaches were excluded. This may set an example for how to stimulate making this culture shift.

Furthermore, the importance of practical aspects such as funding and, by extension, the availability of time should not be underestimated. Adequate funding is necessary for compensation of involvement, but also to ensure that researchers have ample time to plan involvement activities and provide personalized support for PLWD, LTC residents and their carers. Funding bodies increasingly require involvement of the public to be part of research proposals. Yet, support in terms of financial compensation and time for the implementation of involvement in research is rarely part of funding grants [ 42 ]. In addition, whereas an emergent design could aid the impact of involvement, funders often require a pre-set research proposal in which individual components are already fixed [ 5 , 47 ]. This indicates that not only do academic researchers and culture need to change, academic systems also need to be modified in order to facilitate and nurture meaningful involvement [ 47 ].

Strengths and limitations

A key strength of this review is the inclusion of over ten scientific databases, with a reach beyond the conventional biomedical science databases often consulted in systematic reviews. Besides, we believe that we have overcome the inconsistent use of terminology of involvement in research by including also other terms used, such as participation and engagement, in our search strategy. However, there was also inconsistency in length of publications and precision of the explanation of the process of involvement. E.g., involvement in the execution phase was often elaborated on, contributions to the research proposal and co-authoring research findings were only stated and not described. This presented challenges for data extraction and analysis, as it was not always possible to identify how the target group was involved. Involvement in these research phases is therefore not fully represented in this review.

The included studies in this review, the majority of which are of high quality, provide methods for involvement of PLWD and LTC users in research and they do not explicitly attend to the effectiveness or impact of the method for involvement used. Therefore, a limitation of this review is that it cannot make any statements regarding the effectiveness of the involvement methods included. Moreover, our target population was broad, although PLWD and LTC users are largely overlapping in their care needs and share important features, this may have led to heterogeneous results. In future research, it would be interesting to interpret potential differences between involvement of PLWD, LTC users, and their carers. However, as we expected, the amount of literature included in our analyses was too limited to do so. Furthermore, whereas the broad target group is a limitation it is also a strength of our review. Limiting our search to specifically persons living in LTC facilities would have provided limited methods for involvement of persons living with dementia. Our broad target groups enabled us to learn from research projects in which people living with early staged dementia are directly involved from which we can draw lessons on the involvement of people with more advanced stages of dementia and persons living with cognitive problems who live within LTC facilities.

Since January 2021 quite some research has been published about the importance of involvement in research. Although we had quickly screened for new methods, we realise that we may have missed some involvement methods in the past years. There will be a need for a search update in the future.

Implications for future research

Our review shows that a flexible and emergent design may help to increase involved persons' influence on and ownership in the research process. However, not all research objectives may be suitable for the implementation of an emergent design. Future research should therefore examine how aspects of a flexible emergent design can be integrated in, e.g., clinical research without compromising the validity of research outcomes.

Alzheimer Europe has called for the direct involvement of persons living with dementia in research [ 48 ]. In addition, Swarbrick et al. (this review) advise to involve persons regardless of their cognitive abilities [ 23 ]. These statements question the involvement of proxies, such as carers, professional caregivers and others involved in the care of PLWD. While PLWD and persons with other cognitive problems constitute a significant group within residential and nursing homes [ 7 ], none of the studies included in this review have provided methods to directly involve persons with more advanced stages of dementia. This raises the question if research methods should be adapted to allow those with more advanced stages of dementia to be involved themselves or if, concerning the progressive nature of the disease, it is more appropriate to involve proxies. And secondly who should these proxies be? Those that care for and live with persons with an advanced stage of dementia, or for example a person living with an early stage of dementia to represent the voices of persons with more advanced stages of dementia [ 31 ]?

Future research should adopt our example for stricter requirements for involvement and transparency about the involvement methods used. This will reduce tokenistic involvement and further promote the culture shift towards meaningful involvement. In addition, future research should assess the impact of the involvement methods that are described in this review. One of the first instruments that that may be used to do so in varying healthcare settings is the Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool (PPEET) [ 49 ]. Moreover, scholars in this review stress, and we agree with this, that future research is needed on the involvement of persons with more advanced stages of dementia to ensure their voices are not excluded from research [ 33 , 34 ].

This review provides an overview of the existing methods used to actively involve PLWD, LTC users, and carers in scientific research. Our findings show that their involvement is feasible throughout all research phases. We have identified five different methods for involvement, four different roles, and two models for co-research. Our results suggest that planning enough time for involving PLWD, LTC users, and carers in research, is important to ensure that researchers have time to build a trusting relationship and meet their personal needs and preferences. In addition, researchers are advised not to presume the meaning of burden and to avoid a deficit perspective. A flexible or emergent design could aid involved persons’ ownership in the research process.

Availability of data and materials

The full search strategy is provided in supplement 1 . The data extraction form can be provided by the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Critical Appraisal Skills Programme

Guidance for Reporting Involvement of Patients and the Public, long form version 2

• Long-term care

Persons living with dementia

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jan W. Schoones, information specialist Directorate of Research Policy (formerly: Walaeus Library, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands), for helping with the search.

This systematic review received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Janneke M. Groothuijse, Lisa S. van Tol, C. C. M. (Toos) Hoeksel-van Leeuwen, Monique A. A. Caljouw & Wilco P. Achterberg

University Network for the Care Sector Zuid-Holland, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands

Department of Medical Humanities, University Medical Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands

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Concept: HD, LT, MC, WA; design of study protocol: JG, LT, MC; data collection and extraction: JG, LT, MC, THL; data analysis and interpretation: all authors; writing, editing and final approval of the manuscript: all authors.

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Correspondence to Monique A. A. Caljouw .

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Groothuijse, J.M., van Tol, L.S., Leeuwen, C.C.M.(.Hv. et al. Active involvement in scientific research of persons living with dementia and long-term care users: a systematic review of existing methods with a specific focus on good practices, facilitators and barriers of involvement. BMC Geriatr 24 , 324 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-024-04877-7

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Received : 03 February 2023

Accepted : 05 March 2024

Published : 09 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-024-04877-7

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