Systematic and Scoping Reviews

• Narrative Synthesis - produce a summary in text of your findings. Every systematic review requires a narrative synthesis.

• Meta-analysis - the use of statistical techniques to combine and analyze data from the studies included in a systematic review. Not every systematic review requires a meta-analysis.

• Submit your systematic review for publication.

The purpose of a meta-analysis is to determine statistical significance within studies that have conflicting results and to estimate the magnitude of the treatment/intervention effect. To do a meta-analysis, at least two studies must be similiar in terms of population, interventions or measured outcomes. 

Forest plots are most often used to visually summarize the important information of a meta-analysis. The forest plot presents details of each of the studies in the meta-analysis as well as the overall combined result.