Table 1.

Guidance documents audited for this literature review

Guidance documents	Version: Year	Core focus	Where the guidance is reported
Systematic Reviews: CRD’s guidance for undertaking reviews in health care [6].	2009	Systematic reviews of health care interventions	1.3 Pages 16–22
The Cochrane Handbook [9].	Version 5.1: June 2017	Systematic reviews of interventions	Chapter 6: Searching for studies
Collaboration for environmental evidence: Guidelines for systematic reviews in environmental management [10].	Version 4.2 March 2013	Systematic reviews of environmental evidence	Section “Other handbooks exist” (pages 36–41)
Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewers’ Manual [11].	2014 edition	Systematic reviews of qualitative studies	Chapter 7 Information Retrieval (pages 28–31)
Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG): IQWiG [3].	2014	Systematic reviews of health care interventions	Chapter 7: Information retrieval
Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide [2].	2006	Systematic reviews of social science topics	Chapter 4. How to find the studies: the literature search (pages 81–124)
Process of information retrieval for systematic reviews and health technology assessments on clinical effectiveness. Eunethta [7].	Version 1.1 December 2016.	Systematic reviews of health care interventions	Standalone guideline on literature searching
The Campbell Handbook: Searching for studies: a guide to information retrieval for Campbell systematic reviews [8].	Version 1.1. February 2017.	Systematic reviews of interventions in social science topics	Standalone guideline on literature searching
Developing NICE guidelines: the manual [4].	2014	Systematic reviews to inform health care guidelines	Chapter 5. Identifying the evidence: literature searching and evidence submission.