Systematic Reviews for the Health Sciences: Home

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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."