What type of Systematic Review should I conduct?

You know you want to do a systematic review and even know your research question, but how do you know what kind of systematic review to conduct? I remember when I did my first systematic review, I tried to force my research question to fit into an effectiveness systematic review, while it was actually a systematic review of etiology. I wanted to determine which factors are associated with injury in cricket fast bowlers, however, at that time, I was new to systematic reviews, and all of it was so overwhelming. I approached my systematic review as if it was a systematic review of effectiveness; you know where two treatments are being compared to see which one wins. While actually, it was a systematic review of etiology, where one relates factors to a certain outcome. Huge difference! It caused a lot of confusion and frustration. But actually, now that I look back, it seems a bit silly that I struggled so much to get my head around it.

Yes, in both cases, the overarching principles are the same. You collect your primary studies and summarise them into one systematic review, but the detail in terms of how you present and analyse your results is different.

Also, at that time, there was very little guidance on how to do a systematic review, while now, we are blessed with a whole lot of smart people out there who help and guide us. A research group led by Zachary Munn wrote the paper “What kind of systematic review should I conduct? A proposed typology and guidance for systematic reviewers in the medical and health sciences” published in BMC Medical Research Methodology. This is a super valuable article when it comes to figuring out what type of systematic review you need to do according to what you want to achieve. You’ll find a link to this paper below.

When you started working on your first systematic review, can you associate with the total feeling of overwhelm? Let me know in the comment box below this video. Also, give other viewers hope by sharing your successes once you get to the other side alive and thriving.

All the different reviews are listed and explained in Table 1 of the article. In this video, I’ll briefly go through the different types, and then I’ll leave you to go and read the article.

The different types of systematic reviews are:
• Effectiveness reviews
• Experiential (Qualitative) reviews
• Costs/Economic Evaluation reviews
• Prevalence and/or Incidence reviews
• Diagnostic Test Accuracy reviews
• Etiology and/or Risk reviews
• Expert opinion/policy reviews
• Psychometric reviews
• Prognostic reviews
• Methodological systematic reviews

In the article of Munn et al. you’ll find references to more information on each of these types of systematic reviews. They even refer to an example of each of these types of systematic reviews. You can find more information in the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis (see link below).

Now that you know the various types of systematic reviews out there, what’s the next step? Download the paper of Munn et al and save it in a safe place, bookmark the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis, decide which type of systematic review suits your research question best, and download a few examples of this type of systematic review. A good place to get examples from is the journal JBI Evidence Synthesis; you will be able to download their protocols for free, which is already of great help. And then Google Scholar may be able to assist with examples of full systematic reviews. Also, read the relevant chapter in the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. And then, get going!

Munn et al (2018) What kind of systematic review should I conduct? A proposed typology and guidance for systematic reviewers in the medical and health sciences, BMC Medical Research Methodology https://bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12874-017-0468-4

JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis: https://jbi-global-wiki.refined.site/space/MANUAL

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