Umbrella reviews (systematic review of reviews)

Abstract

With a ‘downpour’ of studies being published there is an increasing need to synthesize existing research to inform policy, practice and research. Umbrella reviews adopt explicit and systematic methods to search for, and identify, multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses to compare and contrast findings of individual reviews, and provide an overall picture of findings for a particular research question. Using research on physical activity and mental health as a test case, we identified and assessed 11 umbrella reviews using recommended criteria from the Cochrane collaboration (Pollock et al., 2020). Our findings suggest that many methodological components of umbrella reviews were done well by the included reviews and are in line with best practice in conducting systematic reviews. Some issues, specific to umbrella review methodology, need further attention in future reviews. These include dealing explicitly with potential primary study overlap, using MeSH terms in search strategies, detailing the data extraction process and presenting all necessary information from primary studies and included systematic reviews. Opening an umbrella with these considerations in mind will help sport and exercise psychology researchers conduct such reviews in the future.