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Conducting a Literature Review

Systematic vs Literature Review

systematic versus literature review graph. The definition of a systematic review is a high-level overview of primary research on a focused question that identifies, selects, synthesizes, and appraises all high quality research evidence relevant to that question. Whereas, a literature review is defined as qualitatively summarizes evidence on a topic using informal or subjective methods to collect and interpret studies. The goals of a systematic review are to answer a focused clinical question and to eliminate bias. The goal of a literature review is to provide summary or overview of a topic. A systematic review clearly defines an answerable clinical question. It is recommended to use PICO as a guide. A literature review can be a general topic or a specific question. The components of a systematic review are: pre-specified eligibility criteria, systematic search strategy, assessment of the validity of findings, interpretation and presentation of results, and reference list. The components of a literature review are introduction, methods, discussion, conclusion, reference list. A systematic review may have three or more authors, whereas, a literature review can be conducted with one or more authors. A systematic review takes months to years to complete, with an average of 18 months. A literature review can be conducted in weeks to months. The requirements of a systematic review are thorough knowledge of the topic, perform searches of all relevant databases, and statistical analysis of resources for a meta-analysis. A literature review requirements are understanding of the topic and perform searches of one or more databases. Lastly, the value of a systematic review is that is connects practicing clinicians to high quality evidence and supports evidence-based practice. The value of a literature review is that it provides a summary of literature on a topic.

Kysh, Lynn (2013): Difference between a systematic review and a literature review. [figshare]. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.766364

Steps of a Systematic Review

Steps of a Systematic Review                                                        Steps of a Literature Review                                                              
1. Define your unique clinical question. (PICO) 1. Define your research topic
2. Search databases to see if there is an existing recent systematic review 2. Develop your search strategy
3. Develop your methodology, inclusion and exclusion criteria, (must be reproducible) 3. Conduct the literature search
4. Design and register your search strategy (which databases you will search and why, determine keywords and filters) 4. Read and organize the literature
5. Conduct the literature search 5. Critically evaluate the literature
6. Deduplication of records 6. Write your manuscript
7. Title and abstract screening
8. Full text retrieval
9. Full text screening
10. Snowball (use citations to find additional studies)
11. Rerun search for anything published since initial search
12. Extract and synthesize the data
13. Analyze and interpret results
14. Write your manuscript and document your search process