Systematic Reviews

Systematic Literature Review

This guide offers an overview of some of the components of systematic reviews and systematic literature searches as well as pointers to these components. For those who are new to utilising or conducting systematic reviews, it introduces the key components. There is a lot of literature on systematic review methods and approaches, both from a practical and intellectual standpoint.

This guide aims to be multidisciplinary. Having a clear justification for the methodologies adopted and a transparent presentation of the methodology are common criteria, even though some study domains may differ in their approaches and expectations of a systematic review.

What are systematic reviews?

Systematic reviews are a sort of study literature review that demands the same level of rigour as primary research. They are reported to the review reader with a transparent, logical justification. To support judgements and practises that are founded on solid evidence, they are employed in research and policymaking. In particular, they differ from conventional literature reviews in the following areas of conduct and reporting.

Compared to what is possible from individual pieces of study, literature reviews offer a more comprehensive picture of research knowledge. Clarifying what is known through research, offering fresh viewpoints, developing and testing theories, identifying research gaps, and informing research objectives are all possible uses for this. One kind of literature review is the systematic review, which takes a lot of time and effort.

A review should be systematic if its goal is to produce justifiable evidence claims because systematic reviews employ rigorous specified techniques. The techniques employed can vary depending on the objectives of the review, as well as the time and resources available.

The term "non-systematic review" refers to a review that employs some of the same techniques as systematic reviews, such as systematic approaches to study identification or literature quality assessment. This strategy might occasionally be helpful. If the literature review is only a small portion of the thesis in a student dissertation, for instance, there might not be enough time to conduct a fully systematic evaluation of the literature. To inform some additional work (including a systematic review), a rapid and somewhat incomplete overview of the literature may also be required in other forms of research. Another situation where hasty judgements need to be made by policymakers or other persons using research findings is when there is no systematic review available to assist them. They can choose between getting a quick review of the research literature and making decisions without any supporting research evidence. 

Systematic Review Purpose

• To ensure a review is pertinent and helpful, employ explicit and transparent techniques that are responsible, reproducible, and updateable and that a piece of research follows a consistent set of steps.
• For instance, systematic reviews (like any research) should have a distinct research topic, as well as a description of the author's point of view and strategy for answering it. 
• The procedures used to identify each study in a review, evaluate it for quality and applicability, and combine it with other studies to answer the review question are all explicitly outlined. 
• More than one person is typically involved in a systematic review to strengthen the objectivity and reliability of the review's procedures and conclusions.
• To prevent duplicate reviews and allow for comparisons between the intended and actual reviews, research protocols for systematic reviews may be peer-reviewed, published, or registered in an appropriate repository.
• Any literature review procedures should be properly organised to support the findings, just like any other research project. 

Systematic Review Stages

Depending on the topic and the sorts of studies to be included, the phases of a systematic review may differ slightly, but they often consist of the steps listed below:

1. Clarifying the issue, defining the scope of the research question, and establishing standards for studies that will be included in the review. This data should be included in a protocol along with a strategy for conducting the review.
2. Finding studies involves looking for them and choosing the right sources.
3. Screening and choosing the studies, gathering and presenting the study data, and/or outlining the research's procedures and conclusions in a systematic manner.
4. Evaluating each study's relevance and quality may involve determining its bias risk.
5. using a meta-analysis, if necessary, to analyse and combine the data from the studies in order to address the research issue.
6. Evaluating reporting bias.
7. Displaying data.
8. Analysing data and presenting findings.