Methodology of systematic reviews

Abstract

Systematic reviews are a type of literature reviews that use systematic methods to collect data, critically appraise research studies and synthesize evidence (quantitative approach) and findings (qualitative approach). A systematic review provides a complete, exhaustive summary of current literature to a research question. Conducting a systematic review involves several steps and leads to a research question; this is followed by the implementation of a search strategy, data collection and quality assessment methods. The results may be aggregated, analysed and interpreted. The typical method in quantitative systematic review is statistical meta-analysis, while in qualitative systematic analysis the interpretative method is meta-synthesis. The main findings from the review are summarised. The limitations of the study and the reliability of the results are presented. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of the review are discussed.