A practical guide to understanding systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
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.
Neely
J Gail
JG
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA. neelyg@ent.wustl.com
Magit
Anthony E
AE
Rich
Jason T
JT
Voelker
Courtney C J
CC
Wang
Eric W
EW
Paniello
Randal C
RC
Nussenbaum
Brian
B
Bradley
Joseph P
JP
D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D012196:Review Literature as Topic