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Systematic Reviews for the Health Sciences: Home

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What are Systematic Reviews? Video from Cochrane Consumers and Communication Group

What is a systematic review?

What is evidence synthesis?

  • Any method of identifying, selecting, and combining results from multiple studies that have investigated the same thing.
  • Systematic reviews and other types of reviews (scoping reviews, narrative reviews, etc.) are forms of evidence synthesis.

What is a systematic review?

  • "A systematic review attempts to identify, appraise and synthesize all the empirical evidence that meets pre-specified eligibility criteria to answer a specific research question."
  • "Researchers conducting systematic reviews use explicit, systematic methods that are selected with a view aimed at minimizing bias, to produce more reliable findings to inform decision making."

What is a meta-analysis?

  • "If the results of the individual studies are combined to produce an overall statistic, this is usually called a meta-analysis. "
  • "This aims to provide a more precise estimate of the effects of an intervention and to reduce uncertainty."

Subject Guide

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Betsy Sterner
she/her/hers
Contact:
Elizabeth (Betsy) Sterner, MLIS, MS
Health Sciences & Science Librarian
Assistant Professor
Founders Memorial 311
esterner@niu.edu
815-753-0203

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