Definition of a systematic review used in overviews of systematic reviews, meta-epidemiological studies and textbooks.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:A standard or consensus definition of a systematic review does not exist. Therefore, if there is no definition about a systematic review in secondary studies that analyse them or the definition is too broad, inappropriate studies might be included in such evidence synthesis. The aim of this study was to analyse the definition of a systematic review (SR) in health care literature, elements of the definitions that are used and to propose a starting point for an explicit and non-ambiguous SR definition. METHODS:We included overviews of systematic reviews (OSRs), meta-epidemiological studies and epidemiology textbooks. We extracted the definitions of SRs, as well as the inclusion and exclusion criteria that could indicate which definition of a SR the authors used. We extracted indiv

SUBMITTER: Krnic Martinic M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6829801 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature