Instructions for Conducting Literature Reviews
News Article: Different Types of Reviews Contribute to Evidence-Based Practice in Healthcare, Mental Health, and Medicine
In the realm of research, various types of reviews play crucial roles in synthesizing evidence and informing decision-making across multiple disciplines. These reviews – systematic, narrative, realistic, scoping, and umbrella – each offer unique advantages, tailored to different questions, scopes, and types of data.
Systematic Reviews
Systematic reviews provide a comprehensive, unbiased synthesis of all relevant studies on a specific clinical question using explicit methods. This allows practitioners to identify the best available evidence for treatment, diagnosis, or prevention. For instance, systematic reviews have been instrumental in evaluating the effectiveness of interventions for depression treatment in mental health, as well as antibiotic regimens for pneumonia in medicine. Systematic reviews are foundational in clinical guidelines.
Narrative Reviews
Narrative reviews offer a qualitative, descriptive summary of studies, useful for exploring complex, heterogeneous topics or emerging issues where strict systematic methods may not be feasible. They provide valuable insights in summarizing theories of patient adherence in chronic illness, reviewing mental health stigma frameworks, or overviews of patient-centered care models in healthcare.
Realist Reviews
Realist reviews focus on understanding how and why interventions work (or not) in particular contexts by analyzing underlying mechanisms. They are increasingly used in public health and mental health policy to understand intervention effectiveness in complex systems. For example, realist reviews have been employed to examine how community mental health programs produce outcomes for different populations, or to investigate mechanisms of chronic disease management in diverse settings.
Scoping Reviews
Scoping reviews map out the extent and nature of research on a broad topic, identifying gaps without necessarily assessing study quality. They help guide further research and policy focus. Scoping reviews in healthcare, for instance, have mapped available technologies for telemedicine adoption during COVID-19, explored the range of resilience-building strategies in youth mental health, or identified biomarkers studied in cancer medicine.
Umbrella Reviews
Umbrella reviews synthesize findings from multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses, providing a “review of reviews” to inform high-level decision making and guidelines across broader questions. They are valuable in healthcare guideline development, for example, reviewing multiple meta-analyses on treatments for hypertension or diabetes.
A recent systematic review, titled "Correlates and Consequences of Internalized Stigma for People Living with Mental Illness: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," examines the negative impacts of internalized stigma on people with mental illness. Another noteworthy study, "Narrative Diaries in Pediatrics: A Scoping Review" by Sansone et al. (2021), investigates the use of health diaries with both clinical and narrative elements in pediatrics.
In the field of mental health and well-being, a qualitative literature review, "Exploring Adolescents' Perspectives on Social Media and Mental Health and Well-being - A Qualitative Literature Review," examines adolescents' views on the effects of social media on their mental health and well-being. Meanwhile, a realist literature review titled "Workplace-Based Organizational Interventions Promoting Mental Health and Happiness among Healthcare Workers: A Realist Review" summarizes findings on organizational-level interventions to promote mental health and well-being among healthcare workers.
These reviews demonstrate the significant contributions of each review type to evidence-based practice, each addressing different questions, evidence types, and decision-making needs across healthcare, mental health, and medicine. Their appropriate use enhances the quality, applicability, and comprehensiveness of evidence syntheses in various disciplines.
Systematic reviews offer a comprehensive synthesis of studies relevant to a specific clinical question, providing the best available evidence for healthcare practitioners, as demonstrated in evaluating treatments for depression and antibiotic regimens. (learning, education-and-self-development, training)
Realist reviews analyze underlying mechanisms of interventions in specific contexts, helping to understand intervention effectiveness in complex systems, such as community mental health programs and chronic disease management. (learning, education-and-self-development, training)
