Literature review: challenges

Joanna Smith, EBN deputy editor (@josmith175)

Helen Noble, EBN deputy editor (@helnoble)

Join the EBN Twitter chat on . Participating in a Twitter chat requires a Twitter account; If you do not have one yet, you possibly can create an account on www.twitter.com. Once you have got an account, contributing is straightforward and you possibly can follow the discussion by looking for links to #ebnjc (EBN chat hash tag) and contribute by sending a tweet (tweets are text messages currently limited to 140 characters), to your tweet because it will allow all participants to see your tweets.

Literature reviews, particularly Cochrane systematic reviews of effectiveness, are a very important source of knowledge for busy healthcare professionals to achieve knowledge on a subject and enrich their practice because they often provide recommendations on probably the most effective care interventions. Systematic reviews are frequently based on clear guidelines from recognized centers corresponding to the Center for Reviews & Dissemination based within the UK (http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd) and the Joanna Briggs Institute based in Australia (http://joannabriggs.org) and while the rules are beneficial to anyone conducting a review, they might not provide the very best framework for all reviews, depending on the aim of the review. Over the past decade, the range of evidence review approaches has expanded to reflect the increasing complexity of health care, and over 14 kinds of review designs have been identified (Grant and Booth, 2014).

Many student nurses, each undergraduate and postgraduate, are required to undertake independent study or write a dissertation, normally a literature review, of their final 12 months of study, and customarily with limited resources. Previously, we published, amongst others: Research made easy an article that outlines the important thing principles required to conduct a literature review in a structured and systematic way (Smith & Noble, 2016, http://ebn.bmj.com/content/ebnurs/19/1/2.full.pdf). However, discussions with students and colleagues suggest challenges in choosing a review design and require using the term “systematic review.”

T

1. What sorts of review projects have you ever undertaken and what influenced your selection?
2. What challenges did you face in undertaking the literature review?
3. Should all systematic reviews be undertaken in collaboration with/or depend on methods really useful by institutes corresponding to the Cochrane Collaboration or the Joanne Briggs Institute?
4. Is there a necessity to differentiate between the terms ‘Cochrane systematic review’, ‘systematic review’ and ‘systematic review’?

Resources:

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2008) Knowledge translation. Canadian Institutes of Health Research. http://www.cihr.ca/e/29418.html

Center for Review and Dissemination (2009) Guidelines for conducting reviews in healthcare, 3^R&D ed. CRD; York University in York.

Grant, M., Booth, A J. (2009) Review typology: an evaluation of 14 review typologies and related methodologies. Journal of Health Information and Libraries, 26; 91-108.

Smith, J., Noble, H. (2016) Literature review. Evidence-based nursing19(1), 2-3.

(Visited 3744 times, 1 visit today)