Systematic Reviews

What is a Systematic Review?

Systematic reviews are summaries of all past research on a specific topic. Unlike the traditional approach to reviewing literature, systematic reviews utilise the same principles and rigor that is expected of primary research. As the name suggests, they are systematic in their approach and use methods that are pre-planned and documented in a systematic review protocol. The protocol fulfils the same role as a research proposal as each step in the review process is fully described.

The systematic review process follows these steps:

Identification of a clinical problem

Develop a review protocol

Locate studies

Select relevant studies

Appraise the quality of the research

Collect data from individual studies

Synthesise and summarise the findings of studies

Document method in review report

(The Joanna Briggs Institute for Evidence Based Nursing and Midwifery, 2001, An Introduction to Systematic Reviews Changing Practice Vol 2 Iss 1.