Fig. 1

Software tools assisting the Systematic Review process. The central figure represents from the early to the late stages of the systematic review process described by the Cochrane Foundation (Higgins JPT et al., Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions version 6.3, Cochrane, 2022). The obtained tools were grouped into blocks depending on the covered SR step (Planning: Process of planning and writing the protocol for a SR; Deduplication: Process of removing duplicated records and articles retrieved by the search in a SR; Screening: Process of screening records and articles retrieved by the search in a SR; Data Extraction: Process of data extraction in the SR included studies; Critical appraisal and/or Bias assessment: Evaluation of the methodological quality and/or risk of bias in a SR included studies; Meta-analysis: Process of pooling findings of included studies, using statistical methods; Summary of findings/Report: Process of summarizing and reporting of findings; Work network: Process of networking; Whole process: whole systematic review process including all steps; Search: process of elaboration of search strategy, running the search and/or obtaining records retrieved by the search; Reference Management: process of screening and selection of records, as well reporting and scientific writing allowing management of large numbers of reference records and in text citations; Figures: Visualisation of data; SR Databases: Registration, collection and dissemination of SRs; Publication: Process of publishing the results)