Psychbull literature search strategy

Systematic Search Strategy (psychbull-literature-search-strategy)

A Psychological Bulletin synthesis stands or falls on its search: it must be systematic, exhaustive, and reproducible, and all systematic reviews must conform to PRISMA. The goal is that an independent team could re-run your search and recover the same pool. This skill designs and documents the search; eligibility decisions and coding live in psychbull-inclusion-and-coding.

When to trigger

• Designing the search before screening begins
• A reviewer asks whether the search was exhaustive or reproducible
• Building the PRISMA flow counts (identified → screened → eligible → included)
• Updating the search before resubmission

What an exhaustive search covers

1. Multiple databases, not one. At minimum APA PsycINFO, plus MEDLINE/PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and discipline-specific sources (ERIC, EMBASE) as relevant.
2. Controlled vocabulary + free text. Combine thesaurus terms (APA Thesaurus / MeSH) with free-text synonyms; use Boolean logic and field tags deliberately.
3. Grey literature & publication-bias mitigation. Dissertations (ProQuest), preprints (PsyArXiv), conference programs, registries, and author contact for unpublished/in-press data — to limit the file-drawer problem before the bias analysis ever runs.
4. Backward & forward citation chasing. Reference lists of included studies and prior reviews; forward citations (cited-by) of key papers.
5. Supplementary tools. Google Scholar as a supplement (not a primary database, given non-reproducible ranking).

Documenting for PRISMA / PRISMA-S

• Record, per source: the exact search string, the database/platform and date searched, and the number of hits. This is the PRISMA-S standard.
• Track the flow: records identified → duplicates removed → titles/abstracts screened → full texts assessed → studies included, with counts and exclusion reasons at each stage.
• Save the raw exports; deduplicate in a reference manager (Zotero/EndNote) or screening tool (Covidence/Rayyan) and log the dedup count.

Anti-patterns

• Searching only one database, or only published, peer-reviewed work (biases the pool)
• Reporting "we searched the literature" with no strings, dates, or counts
• A search that cannot be reproduced because the strings were never recorded
• Letting search scope drift silently from the registered protocol without noting the change
• Skipping grey literature, then being surprised by publication-bias findings

What search referees verify at the APA flagship

A Psychological Bulletin synthesis lives or dies on whether an independent team could rebuild its study pool. Reviewers at the APA's flagship review journal apply an explicit search bar:

Search expectation	Pass	Desk-reject / major-revision trigger
Database breadth	PsycINFO + several others + discipline sources	A single database, usually PsycINFO alone
Strings recorded	Per-source string, platform, and date logged	"We searched the literature" with no strings
Grey literature	Dissertations, preprints, author contact	Published peer-reviewed work only
Citation chasing	Backward and forward, documented	None; pool is whatever the keywords returned
PRISMA flow	Counts and exclusion reasons reconcile	Numbers that don't add up to the included k

Worked vignette — documenting the search

Illustrative counts only. The self-affirmation synthesis (final k = 42) builds its PRISMA flow this way under this skill's rules:

• Databases: PsycINFO, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, and ERIC, each searched on a stated date with its exact thesaurus-plus-free-text string recorded per PRISMA-S.
• Grey literature: ProQuest dissertations and PsyArXiv preprints searched; authors of 11 in-progress trials contacted, yielding 3 unpublished datasets — narrowing the file drawer before bias diagnostics.
• Citation chasing: backward (reference lists of included studies and two prior reviews) and forward (cited-by of the 5 anchor papers) added 7 records the keyword search missed.
• PRISMA flow: 2,310 identified → 1,640 after dedup → 1,640 screened → 188 full-text → 42 included, with exclusion reasons tallied so the final box equals the analyzed k.

Referee pushback → venue-specific fix

• "The search isn't exhaustive." → Add the missing databases and grey-literature sources; document author contact for unpublished data.
• "There are PRISMA gaps." → Supply per-source strings, dates, and hit counts, and make the flow diagram reconcile end to end.
• "This search can't be reproduced." → Record and deposit the exact strings so an independent team recovers the same pool; treat Google Scholar as a supplement, not a primary source.

Output format

【Databases】list (PsycINFO + …) with date searched
【Strings】per-database string recorded? [Y/N]
【Grey literature】dissertations / preprints / author contact? [Y/N]
【Citation chasing】backward + forward done? [Y/N]
【PRISMA counts】identified / dedup / screened / full-text / included
【Reproducible】independent team could re-run? [Y/N]
【Next】psychbull-inclusion-and-coding

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — databases, screening managers (Covidence/Rayyan), PRISMA-S
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — PRISMA requirement for systematic reviews