Reviewing the literature: Adopting a systematic approach

Abstract

Although this Journal regularly accepts narrative rather than systematic reviews, the aim of this short paper is to encourage practitioners and researchers in family planning and reproductive health care to adopt a thorough and objective approach to literature reviews. It is hoped that readers appreciate what constitutes a systematic literature review and their application in identifying current knowledge in family planning to facilitate practice. The systematic review overcomes much of the subjectivity of traditional narrative reviews by using an objective approach to reduce bias. The key stages in conducting a review outlined above should be considered, namely: comprehensive identification of relevant literature, explicit inclusion criteria, critical assessment of included studies, summarising data in an informative manner and interpretation of findings. It is recommended that reviews be as systematic as is practical but there is often a trade-off to be considered between time and cost of conducting a review against resulting quality. Busy practitioners may not have the time or resources to conduct systematic reviews to the standards recommended by the Cochrane Collaboration or the NHS CRD. In practice, reviews span from subjective essays based upon personal opinion to 'Cochrane-style' systematic reviews. Nevertheless, we hope this paper emphasises the need for methodological rigour when literature reviewing and encourages practitioners to move along the continuum away from personal opinion towards objective, systematic reviews.