2020 Summer Conference: Linda Errington & Nicola O’Brien

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The 2020 UHMLG Summer Conference is focusing on tools to help with systematic reviews. With a workshop on Thursday and presentations on Friday, it promises to be an interesting, informative and practical event. With the opportunity to network with colleagues from across the HE and NHS sectors, it’s a great value event for all health and medical librarians.

Transforming Your Systematic Review Question into a Robust Search Strategy

In recent years, Newcastle University Library, like many other University and NHS libraries, has experienced an increase in the number of requests to advise or collaborate on systematic reviews. In this session, we will work through an example interaction between librarian and researcher in the process of transforming the research question into a literature search strategy. 

We will demonstrate the importance of scoping searches to determine the suitability of the topic for review, developing inclusion/eligibility criteria to focus the review question, and developing a protocol.  The outcome will be a robust search strategy ready for translation into a number of databases.

Biography: Linda Errington

Linda Errington is Medical Sciences Librarian at Newcastle University, she has an MSc in Health Informatics from the University of Sheffield. As well as being responsible for operational management at the Walton Library, Linda provides subject support to staff and students from Medical Education, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Psychology and Biomedical, Nutritional and Sports Sciences at the University. Increasingly this has meant supporting students through the literature search element of the systematic reviews process, either teaching the theory or providing advice and support on a 1-2-1 basis. To date Linda has worked on 14 published systematic reviews.

Biography: Dr Nicola O’Brien

Dr Nicola O’Brien is a Chartered Health Psychologist registered with the Health and Care Professions Council, and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Northumbria University. Her research focuses on developing and evaluating complex health behaviour interventions. She has particular expertise in the development of physical activity interventions for primary and secondary prevention of chronic conditions, including arthritis, cardiovascular disease and obesity. She is a mixed-methodologist with experience in conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses on a range of different topics.