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Covidence Guide

Guide to using Covidence for systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis projects.

From PubMed

The Covidence import page states that "References can be imported using the EndNote XML format, the PubMed format, or the RIS text format." However, by "PubMed format" they mean PubMed XML format. If you export from PubMed using Send to>Citation manager, it will produce a .nbib file, which is not compatible with Covidence. There are two ways around this.

  1. Save results as PubMed XML
    Click the Save button then select from the dropdowns: Selection: All results and Format: PubMed.. Click Create file.The resulting file will be in PubMed XML and can be imported into Covidence.
    Save from PubMed as PubMed XML
  2. Convert .nbib file to RIS file.
    Use the Send to>Citation manager option in PubMed. Import the .nbib file into your citation manager, then export it as an RIS file. The RIS file can be imported into Covidence.
    Export citations in PubMed - send to Citation Mgr
    Export citations in PubMed - select all results

From other databases

Most databases other than PubMed allow the export of results in RIS format, so their results can be imported directly into Covidence. Below are instructions for some frequently used databases. Make sure to select RIS from the format options and to include all the results.

  • Embase - note: if you have more than 500 results, you will need to log into your Embase account to download them in a single batch
  • CINAHL
  • Web of Science