Systematic Review

Once you have selected the most reliable and relevant studies you will need to pull all the findings together using textual or statistical methods. 

• Watch our video introductions to doing a systematic review

  Watch video 4 in our series of videos on doing a systematic review which includes brief guidance on writing up your results.

A narrative synthesis uses a textual approach to analyse the relationships within and between studies and gives an overall assessment of the robustness of the evidence for the effectiveness of a specific intervention.

• Narrative synthesis

  Guidance from the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination for creating a textual summary of the relevant studies and analysing their robustness.

A meta-analysis is the statistical combination of results from two or more separate studies. This gives an overall statistic (together with its confidence interval) that summarizes the effectiveness of an experimental intervention compared with a comparator intervention.

• Ten simple rules for carrying out and writing meta-analyses

• Quantitative synthesis of comparative studies (meta-analysis)

  Also produced by CRD this link covers doing a statistical analysis of the combined results of the relevant studies.

• Cochrane Handbook - Chapter 10: Analysing data and undertaking meta-analyses

  This chapter of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions provides guidance on when and how to perform a meta-analysis.

• Data extraction tools

  An overview of data extraction tools produced by Cornell University Library.

• Introduction to Meta-Analysis by Michael Borenstein; Larry V. Hedges; Julian P. T. Higgins; Hannah R. Rothstein

  Call Number: 610.72-BOR

  ISBN: 9781119558354

  Publication Date: 2021

  Print only

• How to create a Forest Plot in Excel

  A video showing how to create a Forest Plot using Excel.

PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) provides a structured approach to reporting systematic reviews (and meta-analyses). There is a checklist outlining the sections to include in your report, and a flow diagram to record the number of records retained at each step in the review process.

Current PRISMA flow diagram templates

A new version of the PRISMA guidelines and flow diagram was published in 2020. There are now four templates to choose from:

• Template 1 - use this if you are only searching on databases and not looking at citations or searching for grey literature (most suitable for UG and Masters' project). See example on the right.
• Template 2 - use this if you are doing a more extensive review including citation searching, websites and grey literature (most suitable for research students and staff).
• Templates 3 and 4 for are for updated systematic reviews (with the same coverage distinction).

• PRISMA flow diagram templates

  Links to the latest versions of the PRISMA flow diagram templates.

Previous version of the PRISMA flow diagram

The PRISMA flow diagram used prior to 2020 was simpler and may be more suitable for undergraduate and Masters' level systematic reviews (check with your supervisor which version they would like you to use).

• PRISMA flow diagram template (old version)

• Example of a PRISMA flow diagram (old version)

  This example shows the PRISMA diagram for a study on increased consumption of fruit and vegetables for the primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases

More information

See the following site for more information about PRISMA including the checklist:

• PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses)