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How to structure your Table for Systematic

Review and Meta-analysis

Dr. Nancy Agnes, Head, Technical Operations, Pubrica sales@pubrica.com

Keywords:

systematic review, meta-analysis, writing a

systematic review, meta-analysis writing, Data

extraction, effect sizes for meta-analysis, systematic

review process, write up the systematic study.

In Brief

According to the, a systematic review is "a scholarly

method in which all empirical evidence that meets

pre-specified eligibility requirements is gathered to

address a particular research question." It entails

systematically identifying, selecting, synthesising,

and evaluating primary research studies to produce

a high-quality summary of a subject while

addressing a pre-specified research question. A

meta-analysis is a step forward from a systematic

review in that it employs mathematical and

statistical methods to summarise the results of

studies included in the systematic review(1)

.

I. INTRODUCTION

In some aspects, systematic reviews vary from

conventional narrative reviews. Narrative reviews are

mostly descriptive, do not require a systematic search

of the literature, and concentrate on a subset of

studies in a field selected based on availability or

author preference. As a result, although narrative

reviews are informative, they often include an

element of selection bias. As the name implies,

systematic reviews usually include a thorough and

comprehensive plan and search strategy derived a

priori to minimise bias by finding, evaluating, and

synthesising all related studies on a given subject. A

meta-analysis aspect is often used in systematic

reviews, which entails using statistical techniques to

synthesise data from several studies into a single

quantitative estimation or summary effect size. It is a

well-known and well-respected multinational non-

profit organisation that promotes, funds, and

disseminates systematic reviews and meta-analyses

on the effectiveness of healthcare interventions (2)

.

II. NEED OF SYSTEMIC REVIEW AND META-

ANALYSIS

There are several reasons for performing a systematic

review and meta-analysis:

It may assist in resolving discrepancies in results

published by individual studies that may include

bias or errors.

It may help identify areas in a field where there

is a lack of evidence and areas where further

research should be conducted.

It allows the combination of findings from

different studies, highlighting new findings

relevant to practice or policy.

It may be able to reduce the need for additional

trials.

Writing a systematic review and meta-analysis

will help identify a researcher's field of interest

since they are published in high-impact journals

and receive many citations many citations (3)

.

III. PHASES TO PLANNING A SYSTEMATIC

REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS

The succeeding components to a successful

systematic review and meta-analysis writing are:

Formulate the Review Question

The first stage involves describing the review topic,

formulating hypotheses, and developing a title for the

review. It's usually best to keep titles as short and

descriptive as possible by following this formula:

Intervention for those with a disease (e.g., Dialectical

behaviour therapy for adolescent females with a

borderline personality disorder). Since reviews

published in other outlets do not need to be listed as

such, they should state in the title that they are a

systematic review and meta-analysis.

Define inclusion and exclusion criteria

The PICO (or PICOC) acronym stands for

population, intervention, comparison, outcomes (and

context). It can help ensure that all main components

are decided upon before beginning the study. Authors

must, for example, choose their population age range,

circumstances, results, and type(s) of interventions

and control groups a priori. It's also crucial to

determine what types of experiments to include and

exclude (e.g., RCTs only, RCTs and quasi-

experimental designs, qualitative research), the

minimum number of participants in each group,

published and unpublished studies, and language

restrictions.

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Develop a search strategy and locate studies

This is where a reference librarian can be

particularly beneficial in assisting with the

creation and execution of electronic searches. To

recognise all applicable trials in a given region, it

is essential to create a detailed list of key terms

(i.e., "MeSH" terms) related to each component

of PICOC. The secret to creating an effective

search strategy is to strike a balance between

sensitivity and precision.

Selection of studies

After retrieving and reviewing a detailed list of

abstracts, any studies that tend to satisfy inclusion

requirements will be collected and thoroughly

reviewed. To ensure inter-raterreliability, this

procedure is usually carried out by at least two

reviewers. It is suggested that authors maintain a list

of all checked research, including reasons for

inclusion or exclusion. It might be possible to hire

study authors to collect missing data for data pooling

(e.g., means, standard deviations). It's also possible

that translations will be needed.

Extract data

To organise the information extracted from each

reviewed study (e.g., authors, publication year,

number of participants, age range, study design,

results, included/excluded), building and using a

basic data extraction type or chart can be beneficial.

Data extraction by at least two reviewers is necessary

to ensure inter-rater reliability and prevent data entry

errors

Table: 1 outline for systemic review and meta-analysis

Background

Objectives

Review questions Types of patients, interventions, outcomes and studies

Search strategy Databases, study period, grey literature

Review Methods

Databases and article sources

Screening

Data extraction

Assessment of data quality

Data analysis

References

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Assess study quality

In recent years, there has been a push to improve the

consistency of each RCT included in systematic

reviews. Double-blinding, which is acceptable for

clinical trials but not for psychological or non-

pharmacological treatments, significantly impacts this

metric. Other more detailed guidelines and criteria,

such as the Consolidated Standards of Reporting

Trials (CONSORT), as well as articles with

recommendations for improving quality in RCTs and

meta-analyses for psychological intervention, are

available(4)

.

Analyse and Interpret results

The Review Manager (RevMan) software, endorsed

by the Cochrane Collaboration, is one example of a

statistical programme that can measure effect sizes

for meta-analysis. The effect sizes are given, along

with a 95 percent confidence interval (CI) range, and

are presented in both quantitative and graphical form

(e.g., forest plots). Each trial is visually represented

as a horizontal diamond shape in forest plots. The

middle represents the effect size (e.g., SMD) and the

endpoints representing both ends of the CI.

Disseminate findings

Since the Cochrane Collaboration's reviews are

published in the online Cochrane Database of

Systematic Reviews, they are often lengthy and

comprehensive. As a result, it is possible and

encouraged to publish abbreviated versions of the

review in other applicable scholarly journals; indeed,

engaging in a review update or joining a well-

established review team may be a beneficial way to

get involved in the systematic review process.

IV. FUTURE SCOPE

The systematic review's findings should be discussed

in terms of the strength of evidence and shortcomings

of the initial research used for the review. It's also

necessary to discuss the review's weaknesses, the

results' applicability (generalizability), and the

findings' implications for patient care, public health,

and future clinical research (5)

.

V. CONCLUSION

The steps of a systematic review/meta-analysis

include developing a research question and validating

it, forming criteria, searching databases, importing all

results to a library and exporting to an excel sheet,

protocol writing and registration, title and abstract

screening, full-text screening, manual searching,

extracting data and assessing its quality, data

checking, and conducting statistics. The PRISMA or

Meta-analysis must be used to write up the systematic

study and meta-analysis. This is a reporting checklist

for systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses

that specifies what information should be included in

each portion of a high-quality systematic review (6)

.

REFERENCES

1. Alonso Debreczeni, Felicia, and Phoebe E.

Bailey. "A systematic review and meta-analysis

of subjective age and the association with

cognition, subjective well-being, and

depression." The Journals of Gerontology: Series

B 76.3 (2021): 471-482.

2. Vasconcellos, Diego, et al. "Self-determination

theory applied to physical education: A

systematic review and meta-analysis." Journal of

Educational Psychology 112.7 (2020): 1444.

3. Geary, William L., et al. "Predator responses to

fire: A global systematic review and meta‐

analysis." Journal of Animal Ecology 89.4

(2020): 955-971.

4. Donald, James N., et al. "Mindfulness and its

association with varied types of motivation: A

systematic review and meta-analysis using self-

determination theory." Personality and Social

Psychology Bulletin 46.7 (2020): 1121-1138.

5. Madigan, Sheri, et al. "Associations between

screen use and child language skills: A

systematic review and meta-analysis." JAMA

paediatrics 174.7 (2020): 665-675.

6. McArthur, Genevieve M., et al. "Self-concept in

poor readers: a systematic review and meta-

analysis." PeerJ 8 (2020): e8772.