If you haven’t already seen this trio of articles on the validity of the systematic review methodology, these are a must read. Each of the three articles (Yes, No, and Not Sure) are short – three pages. This is a topic that has been frustrating an awful lot of librarians for a really long time. Basically, from my own point of view, it isn’t that the systematic review methodology is bad, but that it’s been over-hyped, mis-used, applied in ways that never should have happened; that peer reviewers don’t know how to review these, don’t know what a good systematic review should look like or should include, and that means a lot of published articles called systematic reviews AREN’T (and should never have been published. In the words of my colleague, Whitney Townsend, they’ve been watered down. I think she’s being overly gentle and diplomatic.
For now, take a look at these, read them, and in a few weeks (if I’m lucky, and can find time to blog!) I’ll come back to this with a few more cogent thoughts. Who knows? I might go out and collect reactions from some of the librarians around here! (I said I’d have to be lucky!)
Are systematic reviews and meta-analyses still useful research? We are not sure
Morten Hylander Møller; John P. A. Ioannidis; Michael Darmon
Intensive Care Medicine
April 2018, Volume 44, Issue 4, pp 518–520
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-017-5039-y
Are systematic reviews and meta-analyses still useful research? No
Sylvie Chevret; Niall D. Ferguson; Rinaldo Bellomo
Intensive Care Medicine
April 2018, Volume 44, Issue 4, pp 515–517
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00134-018-5066-3
Are systematic reviews and meta-analyses still useful research? Yes
Djillali Annane; Roman Jaeschke; Gordon Guyatt
Intensive Care Medicine
April 2018, Volume 44, Issue 4, pp 512–514 | Cite as
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00134-018-5102-3
Emerging Technologies Librarian 