Explore the concept of Systematic Review as a specific research method and why it would be useful in answering your specific research question.

Write clearly using plenty of references. Having plenty of references shows that you have read widely about Systematic Reviews. Methodological Issues in Systematic Reviews

  • Explore the concept of Systematic Review as a specific research method and why it would be useful in answering your specific research question.
  • Critically discuss the hierarchy of evidence, where Systematic Review sits in this hierarchy, and how this impacts on the selection of research methodologies.
  • Critically discuss the strengths and weaknesses of using a Systematic Review approach comparing and contrasting it to other research approaches, for example, comparing it to qualitative and quantitative research.
  • Explore how detecting bias as an indicator of quality is crucial when completing a Systematic Review, for example: time lag bias, citation bias, outcome reporting bias, multiple publication bias and language bias. Define each of these.
  • Outline the exact steps involved in a Systematic Review and appraise the relative importance of these steps.
  • Provide a summary and conclusion. You should use appropriate literature to support what you write, for example, you should refer to Systematic Review papers and specific texts on Systematic Reviews that you have read.

PART B In this part of the essay you will write about your Systematic Review proposal. Please complete the following actions.

1. At the start of this section outline the question you are going to answer and provide a 500-word rationale outlining the importance of this question focusing on the implications your review will have for nursing/midwifery practice.

2. Once you have done this you can present the precise methods of your chosen review using the following guidance. 1. Objectives  Provide a precise statement of the primary objective of the review, make sure your objective closely reflects the question.

  • Outline the target population and intervention or phenomenon under investigation, for example, your intervention could be chemotherapy and your population could be males with prostate cancer. Refer to your question for these.
  • Present the primary and secondary outcomes of interest in your review, for example, your primary outcome could be quality of life mortality rates or healing time, the primary outcome should be written in your question. You can give some examples of possible secondary outcomes, for example, cost, pain, etc.

You will already have worked through these in the tutorials. You can present these using bullet points. 3 2. Criteria for inclusion of studies in the review

  •  Outline the inclusion and exclusion criteria. This will specifically set out which types of studies will be searched for and included. 3. Search Strategy
  • List the keywords and all possible derivatives of such words (e.g. edema, edema).
  • List all databases that will be searched.
  • State any potential limits to the search strategy, do not use the year unless you are building on a previous Systematic Review.
  • Outline if you will search the reference lists of identified articles for any relevant references and if you will hand search some journals.
  • Outline the search of grey literature which may yield some further data, and list all possible sources – for example, government reports, and service reports.
  • State if contact will be made with any authors or other sources such as industry for unpublished work – say that you will do this if you encounter unpublished work.

4. Data collection /extraction and analysis

Outline exactly how data will be collected, extracted, and managed;

  • Data collection and extraction: outline exactly how the relevant articles will be selected – what you will say here is that your search strategy will ultimately lead to the identification of a number of possible articles. You will then review these papers in detail, coming to a decision on those papers that will definitely give you the information you need to answer your question. To aid data extraction you will use a data extraction table and a mock table could be included in your main text to show that you understand what a data extraction table entails and looks like. Or you could use an example of a data extraction table you have seen in a published systematic review.
  • Quality appraisal of the included studies: talk here about using the EBL quality appraisal tool, or other tool, talk briefly through each section of whatever tool you propose to use. Insert a copy of the tool, unpopulated, in your appendices.

Data analysis: to address this you need to say something about the ways in which data is analyzed in a Systematic Review and that you will use one or more of these approaches depending on what data you have to deal with. Show that you have an understanding of the 3 methods of overall analysis: meta-analysis, narrative analysis, qualitative analysis.

5. Conclusion 

  • Draw conclusions on the value of Systematic Review as a research approach.
  • Say what you have learned about how you can best approach answering your review question in your thesis. References and appendices Ensure all references and appendices are included in my PICO Question The impact of brewing and debriefing on team collaboration in operating theatres