Performing a literature search is an important part of performing a systematic review or a meta-analysis of biomedical literature, which have now become the gold standards for determining what qualifies as 'evidence-based' medicine. Combining searches of English-language databases and the large Chinese-language databases can identify new, potentially important, sources of data that are not include in the traditional English-only reviews. Selection of a restricted subset of databases for conducting the literature search or using inappropriate methods to identify appropriate articles within each database can lead to biased results and incorrect conclusions. This article introduces common English and Chinese databases, describes the search engines available for conducting searches, discusses the basic methods and common pitfalls of conducting searches, and provides an example of a search to highlight these issues.
文献检索是进行生物医学文献的系统综述和 meta 分析的重要组成部分，它已经成为确定什么是符 合循证医学的一项金标准。结合英文数据库和大型中 文数据库的搜索可以找到新的、可能十分重要的数据 源，而传统仅对英文资料的回顾则会遗漏这些数据。 选择一部分代表性有限的数据库或是使用不适合所检 索数据库的方法来进行文献检索以期查到合适的文章， 可能会导致结果出现偏差，从而得出不正确的结论。 本文介绍了常用的中英文数据库，描述了可用于检索 的搜索引擎，讨论了文献检索的基本方法和常见问题， 并提供了一个文献检索的案例来强调这些问题。.
Keywords: bibliography; databases; literature review; meta-analysis; publication bias; systematic review.