Search results

Effective literature searches are critical to researchers and health care professionals. To conduct literature searches, clinicians, researchers and nurses rely primarily on a few major databases (PubMed, Cochrane, CINAHL, etc.) to retrieve information. However, there is a lack of literature on the comparative efficiencies of major databases for systematic review results on a clinically related topic. This paper aims to fill that gap in the literature.

Cochrane Handbook (2011) defines systematic review as a review of a clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods to identify, select and critically appraise relevant research and to collect and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. In this paper, search results of systematic reviews on a clinical topic between two major databases – PubMed and Cochrane Library – are compared.

Searching within PubMed for key terms in the titles and abstracts of articles is important to include in any systematic review, in addition to searching Medical Subject Heading terms. After applying filters, PubMed retrieved 130 systematic reviews that matched the criteria. In Cochrane Library, the searches were performed on the chosen topic using Boolean and phrase searching: text field searches resulted in 251 reviews. The search was further narrowed by subject, which yielded 20 reviews. It is strongly recommended to use multiple health-care specialty databases, check for duplicate reviews in the results and not limit results to English-only publications.

This paper can be used to introduce new researchers and/or students to methods for conducting systematic reviews using two or more databases on a chosen topic.

This paper fills a gap in the literature regarding comparative efficiencies of major databases for systematic review results on clinically related topics.

Systematic reviews – that is, research reviews that are rigorous and follow scientific methods – are increasingly important for assisting stakeholders in implementing evidence-based decision making for children and adults with disabilities. Yet, systematic reviews vary greatly in quality and are therefore not a panacea. Distinguishing “good” reviews from “bad” reviews requires time and skills related to the appraisal of systematic reviews. The purpose of this chapter is to inform stakeholders (i.e., practitioners, administrators, policy makers) of evidence-based information sources that provide synopses (i.e., appraisals) of systematic reviews, to provide guidance in reading and interpreting the synopses of various sources, and to propose how to make sense of multiple synopses from different sources for the same systematic review. A secondary purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how stakeholders can conduct their own appraisals if synopses are not available.

This paper aims to assess the quality of systematic reviews on the effectiveness of psychological therapy for adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) and mental health difficulties.

Four electronic databases were used: Cochrane, PsycINFO, PubMed and Scopus. Studies were included if they were a systematic review focused primarily on psychological therapy for adults with ID and mental health difficulties. Systematic reviews focused on anger were also considered for inclusion. These reviews were rated for quality on the Amstar-2, a quality rating tool designed to evaluate systematic reviews.

Twelve relevant systematic reviews were identified, which included seven reviews focused primarily on cognitive behavioural therapy, two on psychodynamic therapy and three on third-wave therapies. The AMSTAR-2 indicated that all 12 reviews were of “critically low” quality. Thus, there are significant problems with the evidence base.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic review of systematic reviews of the effectiveness of psychological therapies for people who have ID. It provides an overview of the quality of the evidence base into one place.

This chapter provides a roadmap for a systematic literature review built around the guiding questions of basic research design. First, we highlight the relevance and development of systematic literature reviews in tourism research. Second, we put the systematic review into perspective by outlining its characteristics and by clarifying the methodological assumptions. Third, we bring together recommendations based on previous research and review guidelines and present a step-by-step tutorial for a systematic literature review. From this chapter, readers will understand the foundations of systematic literature reviews, will be able to apply the methodology to their review projects and are introduced to further readings and best practice examples.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which a systematic review approach is transferable from medicine to multi-disciplinary studies in the built environment research.

Primarily a review paper, it focuses on specific steps in the systematic review to clarify and elaborate the elements for adapting an evidence base in the built environment studies particular to the impact of green building on employees’ health, well-being and productivity.

While research represents a potentially powerful means of reducing the gap between research and practice by applying tried and tested methods, the methodological rigour is debatable when a traditional systematic review approach is applied in the built environment studies involving multi-disciplinary research.

The foundational contribution of this paper lies in providing methodological guidance and an alternative framework to advance the longstanding efforts in the built environment to bridge the practitioner and academic divide.

A systematic review approach in the built environment is rare. The method is unique in multi-disciplinary studies especially in green building studies. This paper adopts the systematic review protocols in this cross-disciplinary study involving health, management and built environment expertise.

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) is a widely accepted guideline for performing a systematic review (SR) in clinical journals. It not only helps an author to improve the reporting but also assists reviewers and editors in the critical appraisal of available SR. These tools help in achieving reproducibility in research, a major concern in contemporary academic research. But there is a lack of awareness about the approach among management researchers. This chapter attempts to fill this gap using a narrative review of reliable online resources and peer-reviewed articles to discuss the PRISMA guidelines and recent amendments. The chapter further points out the limitations of PRISMA in the review of management literature and suggests measures to overcome that. This piece of literature introduces a reader to the basics of a systematic review using PRISMA as an instrument. One of the significant contributions is to delineate a seven-step strategy to attain reproducibility in the systematic review. The chapter is useful for researchers and academicians in the field of social science and management.

A literature review or review article is an integral part of a scientific body of research which synthesizes prior knowledge and provides a holistic overview of a subject domain. While several studies emphasize the significance of literature reviews and include the guidelines for conducting a review, limited studies demonstrated different types of literature review methodologies in a comprehensive way. Accordingly, this chapter presents various types of review methodologies which includes narrative, descriptive, systematic, meta-analysis, hybrid, umbrella, scoping, theoretical, and critical reviews. In addition, the authors' skills including logical reasoning, content analysis, literature mapping, critical writing, and ethical consideration are presented. Further, quality aspects of the literature review are discussed such as the rigor and relevance of the selected studies. Overall, this chapter provides implications for researchers in understanding types of literature review methodologies along with their objectives, strengths, and weaknesses which can assist them in selecting a suitable methodology while conducting a review.

Schools are an important setting for a wide variety of activities to promote health. The purpose of this paper is to map the different types of health promotion programmes and activities in schools, to estimate the amount of published evaluations of health promotion within UK schools, and to identify any provisional “candidate programme theories” to inform a planned theory-driven systematic review.

Review of reviews: in total, 67 published systematic reviews of health promotion in schools were identified, from which a sub-sample of 28 systematic reviews (on 14 health topics) were retrieved for more detailed reading.

Key dimensions of programme design and delivery fell mainly under the following categories: the problem and age-group of children targeted, who delivers the programme and how, and the scale and theoretical underpinning of the programme. Candidate programme theories spanned both effectiveness factors and aspects of programme implementation.

Few detailed “candidate theories” emerged for explaining how and why health promotion can more successfully implemented in different schools.

There are five or more systematic reviews of studies of health promotion programmes in schools which target: smoking prevention; physical activity; sexual health; emotional and behavioural health and well-being; mental health; substance abuse; obesity/overweight. This suggests probable duplication of health problem-specific systematic reviews.

The findings highlight the considerable diversity of health promotion in schools, and specifies key dimensions of this diversity. They underline the need to understand better how, why, and in what circumstances health promotion can be successfully implemented in different schools and education systems.

The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for scholars carrying out reviews of research that meet international standards for publication.

This is primarily a conceptual paper focusing on the methodology of conducting systematic reviews of research. However, the paper draws on a database of reviews of research previously conducted in educational leadership and management. In a separate effort, the author identified 40 reviews of research that had been published in educational leadership conducted over the past five decades. The paper draws upon narrative examples from the empirical review as a means of clarifying and elaborating on the elements of the conceptual framework. The paper also refers to specific findings from the earlier paper in order to illustrate broader trends with respect to how the various elements of the framework have been employed in exemplary reviews.

As scholars working across a broad range of scientific fields suggest, high quality reviews of research represent a potentially powerful means of reducing the gap between research and practice. Yet, the quality of research reviews conducted in educational leadership and management remain highly variable in methodological rigor. This paper provides a conceptual framework and language that scholars might use to guide the conduct and evaluation of future research reviews in educational leadership and management.

The contribution of this paper lies first in highlighting the need for scholars to employ systematic methods when conducting research reviews in educational leadership and management. Beyond this broad purpose, the paper provides a framework for decision‐making at different points in the review process, and a set of criteria or standards by which authors, readers and reviewers can judge the quality of a research review. It is hoped that this conceptual framework can provide useful methodological guidance that will enhance longstanding efforts in our field to advance knowledge in a more systematic and coherent fashion.

This originality of this paper lies in its adaptation and application of recent methodological advances in conducting reviews of research across the natural and social sciences to the field of educational leadership and management. A search of core journals in educational leadership and management found not a single paper that discussed methods of conducting reviews of research. The paper offers a clear framework that will allow future scholars in educational leadership and management to improve the quality of their research reviews.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value of using a systematic literature review to develop an integrated framework for information and knowledge management systems.

First, the systematic literature review method is introduced, differentiating it from traditional literature reviews in terms of value-added and limitations. Second, this methodology is used in a research application focused on absorptive capacity internal capabilities with regard to the processes of acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation. Third, an integrated framework for information and knowledge management systems is developed from this application.

The systematic literature review approach provides a rigor that can assist in reducing researcher bias while simultaneously enabling the definition of a precise scope of review, with a clear explanation of selection criteria with the objective to find and review all the studies that are relevant to the search definitions. As a research method, it effectively supports a qualitative, quantitative or mixed methodology.

This methodology was applied to one specific area of research. Specific limitations include the availability of articles in subscribed databases and the analytical capabilities of the tools used for text mining and analytics.

This paper demonstrates the usefulness of the systematic literature review methodology in developing an integrated framework for analysis.