Systematic Reviews for the Health Sciences: Home

Inclusion of third-party apps in this entire guide does not constitute endorsement by the guide authors, NIU University Libraries, or NIU. Additionally, order of appearance is in no way an endorsement of one over the other.

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."