Meeting the review family: exploring review types and associated information retrieval requirements.
By A. Sutton, M. Clowes, L. Preston, A. Booth. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 2019
455 citations recorded by the source corpus.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The last decade has witnessed increased recognition of the value of literature reviews for advancing understanding and decision making. This has been accompanied by an expansion in the range of methodological approaches and types of review. However, there remains uncertainty over definitions and search requirements beyond those for the 'traditional' systematic review. This study aims to characterise health related reviews by type and to provide recommendations on appropriate methods of information retrieval based on the available guidance. METHODS A list of review types was generated from published typologies and categorised into 'families' based on their common features. Guidance on information retrieval for each review type was identified by searching pubmed, medline and Google Scholar, supplemented by scrutinising websites of review producing organisations. RESULTS Forty-eight review types were identified and categorised into seven families. Published guidance reveals increasing specification of methods for information retrieval; however, much of it remains generic with many review types lacking explicit requirements for the identification of evidence. CONCLUSIONS Defining review types and utilising appropriate search methods remain challenging. By familiarising themselves with a range of review methodologies and associated search methods, information specialists will be better equipped to select suitable approaches for future projects.
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4cc5f709c372e4e87e46809c0830cac5cdaa0e40
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- D. Pollock
- C. Godfrey
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- Lyndsay Alexander
- H. Khalil
- M. Peters
- F. M. Van der Kleij
Citations in the corpus
- Updated methodological guidance for the conduct of scoping reviews (2020, background): “By 2016, this variety had increased to 25 evidence synthesis methods,(3) and by 2019, this reached 48 review types.(4) The scoping review, also sometimes referred to as ‘‘mapping review’’ or ‘‘scoping study,’’ is one approach to evidence synthesis that is increasingly being utilized internationally.”