Contents

Disclaimer

Oxford University Press makes no representation, express or implied, that the drug dosages in this book are correct. Readers must therefore always check the product information and clinical procedures with the most up to date published product information and data sheets provided by the manufacturers and the most recent codes of conduct and safety regulations. The authors and the publishers do not accept responsibility or legal liability for any errors in the text or for the misuse or misapplication of material in this work. Except where otherwise stated, drug dosages and recommendations are for the non-pregnant adult who is not breastfeeding.

Show Summary Details
Page of

Systematic reviews and meta-analysis 

Systematic reviews and meta-analysis
Chapter:
Systematic reviews and meta-analysis
Author(s):

Jimmy Volmink

and Mike Clarke

DOI:
10.1093/med/9780199661756.003.0118
Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD MEDICINE ONLINE (www.oxfordmedicine.com). © Oxford University Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Medicine Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 04 March 2021

Science, including health care and healthcare research, should be a cumulative process. New studies should take account of information from existing research when they are designed, and their findings should be interpreted in the context of other similar studies. This provides people making decisions and choices about health care with the knowledge they need from research, that has both minimized bias and maximized the power of the findings. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses provide the means to achieve this. This chapter covers the process for these forms of scientific research. It describes how to conduct the systematic reviews and meta-analyses, how to interpret them and how to appraise their reports. We outline various elements in the process, including formulation of a review question, identification of relevant studies, extraction of data, assessment of bias in included studies, synthesis of the data, interpreting the evidence and writing up and updating the review.

Access to the complete content on Oxford Medicine Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.