BookEdward Purssell, Niall McCrae.
Summary: The systematic review is a rigorous method of collating and synthesizing evidence from multiple studies, producing a whole greater than the sum of parts. This textbook is an authoritative and accessible guide to an activity that is often found overwhelming. The authors steer readers on a logical, sequential path through the process, taking account of the different needs of researchers, students and practitioners. Practical guidance is provided on the fundamentals of systematic reviewing and also on advanced techniques such as meta-analysis. Examples are given in each chapter, with a succinct glossary to support the text. This up-to-date, accessible textbook will satisfy the needs of students, practitioners and educators in the sphere of healthcare, and contribute to improving the quality of evidence-based practice. The authors will advise some freely available or inexpensive open source/access resources (such as PubMed, R and Zotero) to help students how to perform a systemic review, in particular those with limited resources.
Contents:
Intro
Contents
1: Introduction
1.1 How to Read This Book
References
2: A Brief History of the Systematic Review
2.1 Literature Past and Present
2.2 A Man with a Mission
2.3 Hierarchy of Evidence
2.4 The Rise of the Systematic Review
2.5 Numbers Are Not Enough
2.6 Conclusion
References
3: The Aim and Scope of a Systematic Review: A Logical Approach
3.1 Aim of a Review
3.2 PICO
3.3 Types of Review Questions
3.4 Eligibility Criteria
3.5 Inclusion Versus Exclusion
References
4: Searching the Literature 4.1 An Initial Foray
4.2 Facet Analysis
4.3 Sources
4.4 Using PubMed
4.4.1 Index Terms
4.4.2 Text Words
4.4.3 Truncation and Wildcards
4.4.4 Conditioning the Search
4.4.5 Filtering
4.4.6 Using PubMed
4.5 Running and Recording Your Search
4.6 Other Data Sources
4.6.1 Google Scholar
4.6.2 Grey Literature
4.6.3 Reference Management
4.7 Conclusion
References
5: Screening Search Results: A 1-2-3 Approach
5.1 Reference Management Software
5.2 Three Stages of Screening
5.3 Screening Form
5.4 Sharing the Load 5.5 Flowchart
5.6 Reporting the Screening Outcome
References
6: Critical Appraisal: Assessing the Quality of Studies
6.1 Assessing Quality
6.2 Critical Appraisal
6.3 Hierarchies of Evidence
6.4 Quality of Reporting
6.5 Methodological Quality of Studies
6.6 Risk of Bias
6.7 Choosing a Tool
6.7.1 Study-Level Assessment
6.7.2 Randomised Studies: Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool-2
6.7.3 ROBINS-I
6.8 Reliability and Validity
6.8.1 Reliability
6.8.2 Validity
6.9 Qualitative Studies 6.9.1 Why Might Reliability and Validity Apply Differently in Qualitative Research?
6.10 Risk of Bias in Qualitative Research: Dependability and Credibility
6.11 How to Use Your Appraisal Results
6.12 What's Next?
6.12.1 Narrative Assessment
6.12.2 Sensitivity Analysis
6.12.3 Restriction to Higher-Quality Studies
6.13 Conclusion
References
7: Reviewing Quantitative Studies: Meta-analysis and Narrative Approaches
7.1 Types of Quantitative Research
7.2 The Logic of Quantitative Research
7.3 More About p-values 7.3.1 Why the p-value Is Not the Probability That the Result Is Due to Chance, and the Probability of Getting Your Result May Be Zero
7.4 Statistical Errors
7.5 Introducing Meta-analysis
7.6 Extracting the Data
7.7 Calculate a Pooled Estimate of the Effect
7.7.1 Interpreting Standardised Effect Sizes
7.8 Vote Counting
7.9 Models of Meta-analysis
7.10 Weighting
7.11 Assess the Heterogeneity of the Results
7.12 Investigating Heterogeneity: Subgroup Analysis and Meta-regression
7.13 Forest Plots
7.14 Publication Bias and Funnel Plots