Systematic Reviews Flashcards
What is a systematic review
Type of literature review
- question formulated
- secondary data collected
- critically appraise research studies
Designed to provide a complete and exhaustive summary of current evidence relevant to a question
Pros of systematic reviews?
Saves readers time
Efficient way of looking at large volumes of literature
Identify gaps in evidence
Act as catalyst for future better studies
Systematic vs non-systematic review?
Systematic uses robust methods to reduce bias
Key characteristics of systematic review?
Well formulated question
Comprehensive data search
Unbiased selection and abstraction process
Assessment of papers
Synthesis of data
What is PICO?
Formulating a question
Participants
Interventions
Comparisons
Outcomes
How is risk of bias managed?
Blinding of outcome assessor and of participant
Selection bias
- Random sequence generation
- allocation concealment
What is meta-analysis?
Calculates treatment effect based on pooled data from a group of studies
What 5 Factors can lower quality of studies?
High or unclear risk of bias
Inconsistency between studies
Indirectness
Imprecision
Publication bias
What is relative risk?
% favours intervention / % favoured placebo
