Systematic Review

The Cochrane Collaboration defines a systematic review as “A review of a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review, Statistical methods (meta-analysis) may or may not be used to analyse and summarise the results of the included studies.

Hemingway and Brereton (2009) state that high quality systematic reviews seek to:

• Identify all relevant published and unpublished evidence
• Select studies or reports for inclusion
• Assess the quality of each study or report
• Synthesise the findings from individual studies or reports in an unbiased way
• Interpret the findings and present a balanced and impartial summary of the findings with due consideration of any flaws in the evidence

High quality peer-reviewed systematic reviews are available in journals as well as from databases (such as Cochrane Library) and other electronic sources.
Systematic reviews may examine quantitative or qualitative evidence.
NIHR funding programmes such as Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) and Programme Grants for Applied Research (PGfAR) will provide funding for systematic reviews.

Example of a systematic review

Heneghan C, Alonso-Coello P, Garcia-Alamino JM, Perera R, Meats E, Glasziou P. Self-monitoring of oral anticoagulation: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet, 2006: 367: 404-411