Before you begin the process of performing a systematic review, you will want to ask the crucial question of whether your project is feasible. Does this project have the potential to lead to a publication in a peer-reviewed journal?
The first question to ask is whether there is enough literature available to actually pursue your systematic review. A quick PubMed search will allow you to assess whether papers have been published on your topic of interest. Be sure to include variations of words (for example, surgery AND surgical), British spellings, and spelled-out abbreviations. If you do not find much, you will need to broaden the scope of your review.
A second crucial question involves asking whether your topic has already been addressed in other review articles. In this case, you may want to perform a PubMed search along with the terms “systematic review” and meta-analysis.” Ultimately, you may need to narrow down your question if you find a lot of recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
