title: A brief overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
abstract: Systematic reviews (SRs) are performed to acquire all evidence to address a specific clinical question and involve a reproducible and thorough search of the literature and critical appraisal of eligible studies. When combined with a meta-analysis (quantitatively pooling of results of individual studies), a rigorously conducted SR provides the best available evidence for informing clinical practice. In this article, we provide a brief overview of SRs and meta-analyses for anaesthesiologists.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroanaesthesia, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Kamath
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sriganesh
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Harsha
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shanthanna
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; The Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Jason W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Busse
keywords: Evidence-based medicine; meta-analysis; systematic review