Systematic Reviews | Start Here

In this guide, you'll find:

• Tips and resources for research to support evidence-based practice (EBP), including:
  • What is a Systematic Review?
  • Systematic Review vs. Literature Review
  • Strengths and Weaknesses
  • How-To/Reporting Guides

"A systematic review (SR) attempts to collate all empirical evidence that fits pre-specified eligibility criteria in order to answer a specific research question.  It uses explicit, systematic methods that are selected with a view to minimizing bias, thus providing more reliable findings from which conclusions can be drawn and decisions made.

Key characteristics of a systematic review are:

• a clearly defined topic, with pre-defined eligibility criteria for studies
• a systematic and reproducible search strategy
• a critical appraisal of included studies
• data extraction and processing
• analysis and interpretation of results"

Higgins, Julian. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, 2009. https://training.cochrane.org/handbook/archive/v5.0.2/.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Strengths 

• Systematic reviews have a rigorous and clear process to identify, critically appraise, and distill information from individual studies to provide recommendations to inform future practice

• Systematic reviews aim to answer a well-defined question, which helps readers identify if the content is applicable to their situation or context

• Clear guidance exists for the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews, which facilitates the review process, decreases bias, and increases research transparency and reproducibility

Weaknesses 

• Narrow focus of systematic reviews may not capture a comprehensive overview of a topic (narrative or scoping reviews may be better approaches)

• Systematic reviews do not answer questions about how/why an intervention does or does not work (realist reviews may be a better approach)

• Systematic reviews include primary studies and do not cover emerging topics published as commentaries or perspectives articles

• Systematic review require a significant body of evidence about a topic in order to be conducted

• Systematic reviews are a major undertaking that are resource and time intensive (i.e., 6 months to 2 years to conduct)

Aromataris E, Munn Z, eds. JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. JBI, 2020. Available from https://synthesismanual.jbi.global. https://doi.org/10.46658/JBIMES-20-01

Gordon M, Gibbs T. STORIES statement: publication standards for healthcare education evidence synthesis. BMC medicine. 2014 Dec 1;12(1):143.

Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cumpston M, Li T, Page MJ, Welch VA (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions version 6.1 Cochrane, 2020. Available from www.training.cochrane.org/handbook.

Page MJ, Moher D, Bossuyt PM, et al. PRISMA 2020 explanation and elaboration: updated guidance and exemplars for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ. 2021 29;372.

Gordon M, Grafton-Clarke C, Hill E, Gurbutt D, Patricio M, Daniel M. Twelve tips for undertaking a focused systematic review in medical education. Med Teach. 2019;41(11):1232-1238.