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Finding Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses

  • A Systematic Review is a literature review focused on a single question which tries to identify, appraise, select and synthesis all high quality research evidence relevant to that question. Systematic reviews use explicit methods to identify, select, and critically evaluate relevant research.
  • Meta-analyses are systematic reviews that combine the results of several studies using quantitative statistics.
  • Systematic reviews minimize the possibility of bias by using explicit criteria, and expand the relevance of individual studies with limited scope, but ...
  • Only a small number of clinical topics are covered by systematic reviews, because they require years of effort to develop.
  • Check out this resource that shows the differences between Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (Eblin Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison).