Systematic Review

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Systematic Review To be led by Christine Clark
Presentation can be viewed at www.staff.livjm.ac.
uk/phaprowe Go to Learning materials and then
Systematic review projects
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Traditional review
What do we know about theophylline? (Process is

Data driven) What papers have
I already got to hand? (Biased) Which ones
should I exclude? (Because they say
the
wrong thing?) Conclusions (Preferably the
same as everybody elses
to avoid controversy)
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Systematic Review
1) Focused question Does daily, oral, low
dose, theophylline given to middle
aged, male, university lecturers
increase their breathing as measured by FEV1?
Defined intervention
Defined subjects
Process is then Question driven - not Data
driven
Defined end-point
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Systematic Review

• 2 Systematic literature search
• All possible sources - not just standard journals
  
• (Includes
  unpublished data if possible)
• All languages - not just English
• Search strategy is recorded and included
• in report - Which data bases?
• - What search terms?
• Another searcher could reproduce your results
• Obtain copies of reports of all studies

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Systematic Review
3 Systematic data extraction A list of details
is drawn up. (Exact dose, Numbers of
subjects, Ages, FEV1 values before and
after treatment etc) Preparation of data
collection sheets Data extracted from individual
papers onto data collection sheets.
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Systematic Review
4 Presentation of results Results presented in
tables etc.
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Systematic Review
5 Meta-analysis? If significant numbers of
studies are all essentially identical (Same type
of patients, same treatments, same end points),
the results of various trials may be
mathematically combined into one big study. Not
an essential part of systematic review.
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Systematic Review
6 Drawing of conclusion Can we answer the
question posed? If so, what is the answer?
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Projects
Will be a learning experience for staff as well
as students! Number will be very limited in
first year (Max 6) Staff involved Will
definitely include Christine Clark and Phil Rowe.
Dave Mottram, Gaynor Bresnen - (likely), Others
are possibles. Will not even attempt to have a
single student complete a review in a single
year. Dermatology is one likely area - others
possible