Systems and complexity thinking in the general practice literature: an integrative, historical narrative review.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Over the past 7 decades, theories in the systems and complexity sciences have had a major influence on academic thinking and research. We assessed the impact of complexity science on general practice/family medicine.

Methods

We performed a historical integrative review using the following systematic search strategy: medical subject heading [humans] combined in turn with the terms complex adaptive systems, nonlinear dynamics, systems biology, and systems theory, limited to general practice/family medicine and published before December 2010. A total of 16,242 articles were retrieved, of which 49 were published in general practice/family medicine journals. Hand searches and snowballing retrieved another 35. After a full-text review, we included 56 articles dealing speci

SUBMITTER: Sturmberg JP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3896540 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan-Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature