Talk:Systematic review

Assessment
IMO this article doesn't get a "high" importance rating because it's unlikely to attract very much attention from non-professionals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Article content
Shouldn't it be mentioned that a systematic review is not only a review of biomedical research but many other types of healthcare related research?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.41.105.161 (talk) 22:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Does this apply in other fields aside from healthcare as well? Certainly other fields do literature reviews; when those reviews are tightly focused around a particular question, is that not a systematic review? ImpIn | (t - c) 08:43, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A systematic review is about more than a review being tightly focused around a particular question. That said, systematic reviews are used in contexts beyond healthcare, e.g. education. Bondegezou (talk) 16:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Systematic Literature Reviews have been around for a long time, in many other fields. Although they are very important in medical research, there appears to be a perception (encouraged by this article), that they are connected to RCTs and therefore are an invention of medical research.  They were co-opted from other fields.  This is a severe weakness in this article, and it should be flagged as such.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kmasters0 (talk • contribs) 10:55, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * There is an increasing number of systematic literature reviews in management-related research, as well. 192.38.121.229 (talk) 23:06, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

'scoping review' or 'scoping study'
The term 'scoping review' appears in some research literature to describe knowledge synthesis. Should we include either a summary sentence or a link (or both) in the article? The article on scoping (perhaps originally a Disambiguation article) goes only to the article on Scope in computer science.

Mandatory for all professionals?
Either the universal qualifier should be removed or the set of individuals designated specified. Is this saying that RNs. physician assistants, EMTs, etc. for example, are either not medical professionals or should be capable of conducting a systematic review? 96.243.13.36 (talk) 19:30, 27 February 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, I'm an american and it's common here to call just about anybody a professional. I didn't know until reading the professional article that the term might be restricted to doctoral graduates which usage would make (much more) sense although I still think the universal qualifier is overreaching. 96.243.13.36 (talk) 19:34, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Journal on the topic
I've recently started the Systematic Reviews article, about the open-access journal of that name. Editors here will find that journal a rich source for content. Enjoy! LeadSongDog come howl!  21:53, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Synonymous terms
You might want to create REDIRECTs from Systematic literature review and Structured literature review to this article, as these are widely used synonyms. 192.38.121.229 (talk) 22:44, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Too much detail of Cochrane Collaboration?
Given that Cochrane Collaboration already has its own article, isn't it overly discussed in this article?__DrChrissy (talk) 08:27, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Problems in lede
See discussion here Problems with Systematic review usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine) prokaryotes (talk) 22:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This pdf is a good summary http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/painres/download/whatis/syst-review.pdf and i suggest we use this for the lede intro paragraph, and then point to others like from Cochrane, and mention the diversity of SR's.prokaryotes (talk) 22:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Definition of systematic review
There are a few problems with the first sentence: a structured literature review isn't necessarily a systematic review (it's a term people sometimes use to distinguish when they haven't gone through all the steps after the structured search for literature). Literature review isn't precise enough either, as many look for unpublished studies, not just published ones. Nor is it restricted only to high quality research - mostly that's not a criterion.

Here's an open access definition. But I think that has problems too, as a systematic review can address multiple questions.

How about something like: A systematic review is a research study that collects and analyzes multiple studies. Systematic reviewers use pre-specified methods to frame one or more questions, and identify, select, and critically appraise relevant studies.

I think "high-quality" should go from second sentence too. People might think if a trial is in a systematic review, then that means it's high quality. Ping User:Doc_James Hildabast (talk) 17:17, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Hildabast have simplified. Let me know what you think. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 18:29, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That's great, except "they" comes out of the blue (it's systematic review singular in the first sentence). How about "The researchers"..... Ping User:Doc_James Hildabast (talk) 18:31, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Done Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 23:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Forgive me, but this thread has become impossible to follow. I don't really care who you are pinging, but it appears that definitions are being suggested on other pages rather than here.  Please let's keep it simple. DrChrissy (talk)

Characteristics section
The chacteristics section is missing 2 important issues:. The first step is formulating a structured question that can shape the review - and you have a page on PICO, so that would be good to mention there too. And it needs to explain what is meant by search strategy, especially as it's crucial and is a bit misleading down under stages (where there's not enough room to explain it).

It's a core part of a systematic review, and should include the search terms (good definition of that part here), which is shorter than Cochrane's, although it's saying the same thing. Hildabast (talk) 20:24, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Updated the first bit. User:JenOttawa you able to help with the other bits? Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 23:24, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, I will take a look. Thanks. JenOttawa (talk) 10:36, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Business systematic review
For general comments. This source was used to support a new section on business reviews, but I rejected it here because it appears to be a theoretical guide for reviewing supply chain management, rather than a systematic review itself. IP user 80.71.142.166 discussed it on my Talk page:
 * The encyclopedia should be based on concepts confirmed by experts, as explained in the article on systematic reviews and intimated by WP:NOTJOURNAL, #6-7, and WP:CRYSTAL which addresses forward-thinking, untested hypotheses like the source you supplied. That article states: "propose a new paradigm for SLRs in the supply chain domain that is based on both best practice and the unique attributes of doing supply chain management research. This approach involves exploring existing studies with attention to theoretical boundaries, units of analysis, sources of data, study contexts, and definitions and the operationalization of constructs, as well as research methods, with the goal of refining or revising existing theory", indicating this is theory being proposed for debate and further refinement. It's too undeveloped to be treated as encyclopedic. --Zefr (talk) 20:33, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I generally agree with your arguments, but the article proposes a methodological, not a theoretical model. How should methodological models ever be tested? While theoretical articles contain concepts indeed, methodological contributions are, per se, normative in nature. Moreover, the article bases this model on a meta-review of hundreds of systematic literature reviews that have been published in SLRs related to management. Thus, it is not just a half-baked proposal. While I can see that your intention, to prevent Wikipedia from containing crap, is very noble here, I do not agree in this specific case. With an impact factor of almost 6, the journal this important methodological contribution has been published in can be considered as one of the top 10 management journals. It would be very difficult to explain to a management researcher that such a journal publishes "undeveloped" work and such knowledge should be kept out of Wikipedia. In fact, the journal is known for having one of the most gate-keeping review processes. The current WP article is focused on systematic reviews in medicine, and it mentions the methodological "gold standard" of that discipline in depth, but it lacks a corresponding mentioning for management-related disciplines. If you agree, I can try to make a slightly longer contribution to the article explaining this. However, that will not be possible without referring to the important work of Durach et al. Any ideas how we could find a solution that would be satisfying for both of us? 80.71.142.166 (talk) 05:19, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Although the article's journal is respectable, I remain unconvinced that this article sufficiently reviews business practices, but rather is a theory for improving future reviews, so is not really usable here. --Zefr (talk) 13:30, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Methodological models are frequently tested: you try the method and see if it works. Perhaps the article could be covered as a suggestion for future reviews, but it would need to be clear that that is what it is. The last sentence of the Characteristics section begins to talk about recent developments in reviewing methods and could perhaps be expanded into a whole section. Bondegezou (talk) 16:16, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * @Zefr: The article is not focused on reviewing business practice. It is an article that shows how systematic reviews should be conducted in business research, similarly to how Cochrane and Campbell provide guidelines for medicine and social sciences. In that sense, the article would nicely extend our existing article by a "gold standard" that is used in business research. Why should the article review business practices if this Wikipedia article is about the systematic literature review methodology? 80.71.142.166 (talk) 19:20, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt the expertise behind the article or the quality of the journal where it was published. The abstract impresses that the article content is a guide for writing reviews on business research, thereby falling into WP:NOTGUIDE, #1. It is different from a systematic review often seen for medical articles where the review covers numerous high-quality clinical trials, acknowledged as one of the highest-quality sources described in WP:MEDASSESS. The article under question here describes "how" an excellent review should be written. If it were a review of reviews, it would be a good source for business content. --Zefr (talk) 14:30, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Please explain.
Grammar is faulty. 79.49.127.90 (talk) 19:23, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

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Review Tools
Dear everyone,

I have some issues with the Review Tools part. Disclaimer, I am one of the authors of the cited paper, but the way the information currently is presented is (potentially) misleading and there is a better source for this part.

The currently cited paper is about tools that can be used for screening references in a systematic review. This is only one part of the process and there are many Systematic Reviews tools not mentioned because they are not used for screening of references.

A better, more exhaustive source is the Systematic Review Toolbox, this is a constantly updated repository with SR tools for all parts of a systematic review.

I'm not very familiar with editing Wikipedia and I don't know the guidelines by heart, so I would request somebody more knowledgable to change the source and to expand the list of tools (or alter it completely) as I feel that the way it is now gives a skewed overview.

With kind regards, Equites22

Equites22 (talk) 08:48, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * SR Toolbox appears to be a free service described as "a community-driven, searchable, web-based catalogue of tools that support various tasks within the systematic review and wider evidence synthesis process". Although potentially valuable to SR authors and developers, it impresses me as more of a how-to resource rather than being encyclopedic; WP:NOTHOWTO. As a SR resource, it may be better placed in the External links section, and the section now used to define SR tools - as says - is more about screening source quality (as I edited on 31 May and warned about having undue weight), so should be deleted. --Zefr (talk) 15:43, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Dear Zefr. With regards to being a "how to" source, do you mean this section of review tools, or the SR toolbox? Because if it is the first case I might agree. There are better suited sources online for people interested in learning how to perform systematic reviews (SRs) (for example, the Cochrane handbook, although this version will be superceded relatively soon). Following your link to WP:nothowto I can't really find a reason why the SR toolbox wouldn't be suitable as a source? But if you need a peer-reviewed source there is the paper by Kohl et al. which (like van der Mierden et al.) also looks at SR tools, but in this case looks at tools suitable for the whole systematic review process, and not only the screening part.
 * With kind regards, Equites22 (talk) 11:02, 10 July 2019 (UTC)