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- The process of determining a question, setting exclusion/inclusion criteria, and finding, selecting, critically appraising and synthesizing the literature
- Provide summaries of evidence-based healthcare
- Synthesis of best evidence for clinical decision
- Include and critically analyze every study they find
- Some more trustworthy than others (biased reviews or unintentional but serious mistakes)
- Emphasis on comprehensiveness and transparency

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- Reside at the top of the evidentiary hierarchy
- Attempt to synthesize and develop conclusions from the diverse studies and their disparate findings
- Are specific methods designed to increase trustworthiness and reduce bias
- Can save time in searching and appraising studies and in ascertaining which alternative interventions, policies, or programs have stronger and more beneficial effects
- Increase external validity

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- Systematic reviews are not the same as meta-analyses
- The systematic review is the process of undertaking the review, while the meta-analysis is the statistical synthesis of homogenous data
- Meta-analyses may be part of a systematic review (outcome)
- A systematic review may end up in a meta-analysis

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- Specific subset or outcome of systematic reviews; sometimes can be created on its own
- The statistical process of synthesizing findings from many studies which all investigate a similar issue
- Looks at effect size in two forms: correlations and z-scores
- Studies may report differing effects of treatment --> the meta-analysis brings all these different effects together and provides the summarized effects of the different studies
- Helps to address the limitations of individual studies (e.g., small sample sizes)
- Can only be done for homogenous (similar) data

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Kumar, S. (2019). The difference between a systematic review and meta-analysis [Video]. UniSA Library. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc7M1r45jwc
Rubin, A. & Bellamy, J. (2012). Practitioner’s guide to using research for evidence-based practice (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.