4,998,788 papers found

This article, the second in a two-part series, continues to describe the stages involved in conducting a systematic review. The article discusses how to select and appraise studies for inclusion in the review, and how to extract, synthesise and present the findings. A summary of the key points for writing the results a…

AIM: Isolated colon lipomas are rare benign tumors. We herein conducted a systematic review of the literature to identify clinical characteristic, diagnostic and treatment options. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A search for relevant studies was conducted in Scopus, Embase and Medline databases until the end of May 2014. The…

Many policies promote patient and public involvement (PPI) in health research and healthcare provision. However, research points to uncertainties about its impact. The aim of the article was to compare what types of impact have been reported in reviews of PPI in health research and healthcare, respectively, and to map…

This article is part of the series "How to prepare a systematic review of economic evaluations (EES) for informing evidence-based healthcare decisions", in which a five-step approach is proposed. Areas covered: This paper focuses on the selection of relevant databases and developing a search strategy for detecting EEs,…

This systematic review aims to identify reviews of fetal fibronectin and transvaginal cervical length for predicting preterm birth, so that these could be appraised and the findings from good quality reviews highlighted. Reviews, rather than individual studies, are the basis for this systematic review because of the pr…

BACKGROUND: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are considered to be the 'gold standards' for synthesizing research evidence in particular areas of enquiry. However, such reviews are only useful if they themselves are conducted to a sufficiently high standard. The aim of this study was to conduct a narrative meta-revi…

PURPOSE: Individuals diagnosed with cancer have a range of supportive care needs that are often unmet despite substantial evidence supporting interventions to address them. Addressing this knowledge-translation gap represents a significant opportunity to improve health outcomes. A scoping review of reviews was conducte…

Retirement from sport is a life transition that has significant implications for athletes' physical and mental health, as well as their social and professional development. Although extensive work has been done to review the retirement experiences of athletes, relatively less work has been done to examine and reflect o…

It can be very complicated to obtain relevant information through searching the medical literature if you do not know how it is organized and indexed or if you do not know how to use the specialized databases. For a successful review of the literature, you need to know what you are looking for and the key words for an…

BACKGROUND: Increasing diversity in Australia requires healthcare practitioners to consider the cultural, linguistic, religious, sexual and racial/ethnic characteristics of service users as integral components of healthcare delivery. This highlights the need for culturally appropriate communication and care. Indeed the…

BACKGROUND: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were used or are being used in the manufacturing of products, including consumer-use products. The resulting environmental contamination has led to widespread human exposure. This review aimed to scope the characteristics of evidence covered and applied methodology…

Persistent androgen signaling is functionally significant in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and it is actually considered a validated therapeutic target. Residual intra-tumoral androgens compensate for the effects of androgen ablation, activating the androgen receptor (AR), AR-mediated gene expression and…

INTRODUCTION: research on intrapartum interventions in maternity care has focused traditionally on the identification of risk factors' and on the reduction of adverse outcomes with less attention given to the measurement of factors that contribute to well-being and positive health outcomes. We conducted a systematic re…

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate critical appraisal tools (CATs) that have been through a peer-reviewed development process with the aim of analyzing well-designed, documented, and researched CATs that could be used to develop a comprehensive CAT. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: A critical review of the development of CATs was under…

OBJECTIVE: To systematically review methods for systematic review/meta-analysis in order to identify the different methodological and statistical methods that have been proposed. A summary of the main findings is presented here, with emphasis given to health services research topics. METHODS: A thorough systematic sea…

Schools are identified as a key setting to influence children's and adolescents' healthy eating. This umbrella review synthesised evidence from systematic reviews of school-based nutrition interventions designed to improve dietary intake outcomes in children aged 6 to 18 years. We undertook a systematic search of six e…

OBJECTIVES: To support systematic reviewers new to network meta-analysis (NMA), we (1) identified and described published methods resources for conducting systematic reviews (SRs) with NMA of randomized controlled trials (RCTs); (2) mapped the resources to the typical steps for conducting NMAs; and (3) identified NMA g…

No guidelines exist for the conduct and reporting of manuscripts with systematic searches of app stores for, and then appraisal of, mobile health apps ('health app-focused reviews'). We undertook a scoping review including a systematic literature search for health app-focused reviews describing systematic app store sea…

BACKGROUND: Systematic reviews (SRs) and realist reviews (RRs) are increasingly conducted in a coordinated manner with intersecting methodological processes, forming what we term hybrid review designs. However, little is known about how these hybrid reviews are conducted and structured. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to…

BACKGROUND: Multiple review systems have been established within medicine and psychology to evaluate and disseminate research findings to clinical practice. PURPOSE: Within this article, five evidence-based review systems are reviewed to inform the development or the use of an evidence review system for the behavioral…