Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses

Preparing to conduct the systematic review

• Discusses the value of systematic reviews and meta-analyses for the field and when they should be done
• Discusses how to identify a relevant research question that will serve as the motivation for the review as well as ensuring its novelty and originality
• Highlights how to define the appropriate inclusion and exclusion criteria that will be essential in selecting the appropriate studies to be included
• Discusses strategies to find both published and unpublished studies along with useful tools to screen through

Extracting and analysing data 

• Focuses on how to properly extract and analyse the data from the selected studies in the review
• Discusses how to use standardised data extraction forms to extract the appropriate data from the studies for analysis
• Reviews how to assess the bias within the selected studies that will affect the impact of those data
• Discusses the various types of biases that plague systematic reviews as well as the strategies to minimise those biases to improve the review’s robustness and reliability

Performing syntheses

• Reviews how to synthesise the extracted data and present the analyses in a way to emphasise the value of the review
• Discusses how to synthesise the data from the selected studies qualitatively for the systematic review and how it should be presented in the manuscript
• Introduces meta-analyses and when they should be done to complement the qualitative analysis in a systematic review
• Discusses the techniques and statistical methods that are used in performing the meta-analysis in the study
• Explores fixed effect and random effects models, statistical heterogeneity, meta-regression techniques and lastly subgroup and sensitivity analyses