A systematic review is designed to summarize the results of available studies and provides a high level of evidence-based findings on the effectiveness of interventions. Our experts can handle any type of research, whether you need systematic review based on controlled clinical trials or review based on observational study designs or community (e.g. psychology) intervention? Our experts at Pubrica, perform a rigorous systematic review by following multi-step process, which includes
A Systematic review provides answer to a defined research question. It answers the question by collecting and summarizing all the evidence that fits in the prescribed selection criteria.
We have PhD level domain experts who also have decades of scientific review writing experience. As such, we have the capability to deliver a high calibre, written literature review. Our experts are very facile around scientific literature databases to complete the literature review, including PubMed & Medline and cancer domain expertise to selectively identify impactful journal articles to draw upon for the systematic review. Written status reports will be shared at every milestone completion including
1) an overview of the status of completion of deliverables including specifics of the literature search and environmental scans;
2) a description of progress addressing discrete components of the Report as agreed;
3) a description of challenges encountered, potential risks and associated mitigation strategies.
The systematic reviews should include:
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Clearly defined objectives with and must include predefined eligibility criteria for studies.
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Should follow a reproducible methodology.
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Systematic review search approach that helps to identify multiple studies (york.ac.uk, 2019).
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Should provide study of the validity of the findings.
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Should include systematic review presentation and synthesis of the features and findings of the studies
It is very important that each review is studied thoroughly and carefully and attention is paid to detail. One should carefully plan and document all the material required.
One common misinterpretation about meta-analysis and systematic reviews is that both the terms are the same. They can also be used as alternatives to each other. However, this does not hold true. Even though there is a considerable similarity of features between meta-analysis and systematic reviews the two are not same. The following difference will help understand more.
A systematic review guideline will often determine the study design to answer the formulated question, and it is not enough in trusting the evidence of systematic review over observational studies. There are several terms like quality assessment, critical appraisal, or internal validity, which are used for the evaluation of studies supported by the guideline. Whereas in the risk of bias, the bias determines the factor that can affect the observations and findings of the study systematically and report it to be different from the actual conclusion. In other words, a study affected by bias can be inaccurate and thus leads to an inappropriate guideline recommendation. Therefore, inadequate study design or the conduct of the study will give false findings which result in wasting time and resources, and missing opportunity for effective intervention.
Definition of a systematic review: A systematic review is an in-detail, clear and systematic review way of collecting, evaluating and synthesizing evidence that will answer your question of study.
Definition of meta-analysis: Meta-analysis is a statistical approach or procedure for accumulating data in the form of values or numerical from different studies. A meta-analysis should be carried out in the manner of a systematic review.
Systematic reviews will most of the times, not necessarily, always include a meta-analysis of data in the form of numeric values that is collected from the studies. Meta-analysis might prove to be a bad choice when the answer to the review question is better with qualitative data.
Following are the stages in conducting a review
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Definition of the question: A researcher should always define their question. They are ideally expected to register their preferred review label with Campbell or any identical form.
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Formation of a protocol: Proper specification and publishing of the suggested methodology helps form a proper protocol.
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Search the literature: Carrying out an in-depth search of the literature associated with your study is also very essential.
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Analyze your results: Analyzing the search outcomes or results and comparing them with your prescribed selection or exclusion criteria that helps to determine the studies that need to be included.
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Quality appraising of the stud: This proves very important to determine the quality of study that is found.
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Synthesis: The evidence should be synthesized. This is one major step during which meta-analysis might or might not play a role.
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Publish and publicize the systematic review
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Updating: The review should be updated when fresh evidence is received.
Carrying out a meta-analysis would be a bad decision if the nature of your studies is too different to cumulate. For instance carrying out a systematic review on the outcomes of listening to music during studies on the exam performance of students and the data collected for one study is for classical music, for two it is on pop music and it includes both teenagers and children respectively, the other one can be related to death metal and the later on 80’s classics. One cannot combine the above different data with one meta-analysis. On the other hand if you opt for a synthesis by considering the interventions and populations which are not similar. To decide the type of studies to be included and excluded in meta-analysis is systematic review highly dependent on the question that is asked.
Conclusion
Thus, allocating more time on protocol and following the analytic way of thinking before starting the systematic review is often preferred for proper utilization of time.
