title: A practical guide to understanding systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
abstract: A systematic review is a transparent and unbiased review of available information. The published systematic review must report the details of the conduct of the review as one might report the details of a primary research project. A meta-analysis is a powerful and rigorous statistical approach to synthesize data from multiple studies, preferably obtained from a systematic review, in order to enlarge the sample size from smaller studies to test the original hypothesis and/or to generate new ones. The objective of this article is to serve as an easy to read practical guide to understand systematic reviews and meta-analyses for those reading them and for those who might plan to prepare them.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA. neelyg@ent.wustl.com
authors.forename: J Gail
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Neely
authors.forename: Anthony E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Magit
authors.forename: Jason T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Rich
authors.forename: Courtney C J
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Voelker
authors.forename: Eric W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Randal C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Paniello
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nussenbaum
authors.forename: Joseph P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Bradley
mesh_terms: D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D012196:Review Literature as Topic