Getting Started with Systematic Reviews: SR types, methods, examples

"Today, new forms of reviews are appearing. These have emerged in response to policymakers and other stakeholders’ needs for information, sometimes emergently or urgently, for which the existing systematic review model does not quite fit....We expect this process of evolution to continue and to refine the methods such that in 10 years’ time, there will appear new, as yet unimagined species of reviews—and perhaps some current species of review will become extinct. Thus, it is with the scientific method, which we believe is the foundation that unites the Family of systematic reviews."

From Moher, D., Stewart, L., & Shekelle, P. (2015). All in the Family: systematic reviews, rapid reviews, scoping reviews, realist reviews, and more. Systematic Reviews, 4.

• ​Gough, D., Thomas, J., & Oliver, S. (2012). Clarifying differences between review designs and methods. Systematic Reviews, 1(1), 28.
• Gough, D., Thomas, J., & Oliver, S. (2019). Clarifying differences between reviews within evidence ecosystems. Systematic Reviews, 8(1), 170. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-019-1089-2
• Moher, D., Stewart, L., & Shekelle, P. (2015). All in the Family: systematic reviews, rapid reviews, scoping reviews, realist reviews, and more. Systematic Reviews, 4.
• Schick-Makaroff, K., MacDonald, M., Plummer, M., Burgess, J., & Neander, W. (2016). What Synthesis Methodology Should I Use? A Review and Analysis of Approaches to Research Synthesis.   For quick pdf copy see link below.
• Tricco, A. C., Zarin, W., Ghassemi, M., Nincic, V., Lillie, E., Page, M. J., … Straus, S. E. (2017). Same family, different species: methodological conduct and quality varies according to purpose for five types of knowledge synthesis. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2017.10.014
• Nguyen, V. T., Benchoufi, M., Young, B., Ghosn, L., Ravaud, P., & Boutron, I. (2019). A scoping review provided a framework for new ways of doing research through mobilizing collective intelligence. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 110, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2019.02.007​
• Sutton, A., Clowes, M., Preston, L., & Booth, A. (2019). Meeting the review family: Exploring review types and associated information retrieval requirements. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 36(3), 202–222. https://doi.org/10.1111/hir.1227
• MacMillan, F., McBride, K. A., George, E. S., & Steiner, G. Z. (2018). Conducting a systematic review: A practical guide. In Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences(pp. 2–22). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_113-1