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Systematic Reviews & Other Review Types

What is a systematic review?

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. 

Systematic reviews have the potential to be used in clinical practice and inform evidence-based guidelines due to the research methodologies used to combine data and remove bias,

Systematic reviews are conducted by teams of three or more people, take at least one year to complete, and the search must be conducted on all relevant databases.

A systematic review typically includes the following components:

  • Abstract
  • Introduction or Background
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion or Conclusions
  • References
Not every review is a systematic review.  Before beginning a systematic review, consider whether another review type would be more appropriate.
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