HOW TO PERFORM A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW. A GUIDE FOR HEALTHCARE RESEARCHERS, PRACTITIONERS AND STUDENTS

Introduction
• A brief history of the systematic review
• The aim and scope of a systematic review: a logical approach, developing a question
• Systematic reviews/other types of review
• Searching for literature
• Screening search results: a 1-2-3 approach
• Critical appraisal: assessing the quality of studies
• Meta-analysis: reviewing quantitative studies
• Metasynthesis: reviewing qualitative studies
• Mixed-method synthesis
• Meaning and implications
• Making an impact
• Appendices
• Glossary.

The systematic review is a rigorous method of collating and synthesizing evidence from multiple studies, producing a whole greater than the sum of parts.This textbook is an authoritative and accessible guide to an activity that is often found overwhelming. The authors steer readers on a logical, sequential path through the process, taking account of the different needs of researchers, students and practitioners. Practical guidance is provided on the fundamentals of systematic reviewing and also on advanced techniques such as meta-analysis. Examples are given in each chapter, with a succinct glossary to support the text.This up-to-date, accessible textbook will satisfy the needs of students, practitioners and educators in the sphere of healthcare, and contribute to improving the quality of evidence-based practice. The authors will advise some freely available or inexpensive open source/access resources (such as PubMed, R and Zotero) to help students how to perform a systemic review, in particular thosewith limited resources.

Features
• Presents a logical approach to systematic literature reviewing
• offers a corrective to flawed guidance in existing books
• An accessible but intellectually stimulating guide with illuminating examples and analogies

Authors
• Dr. Edward Purssell teaches children’s nursing and research methods at City, University of London. His clinical interests include paediatric medicine and in particular the treatment of fever in children and infectious diseases. He has a methodological interest in research synthesis, meta-analysis and the use of transparent methods of decision-making in clinical practice.
• Dr. Niall McCrae teaches mental health nursing and research methods at the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care at King’s College London. His research interests are dementia, depression, the impact of social media on younger people, and the history of mental health care. Niall has written two previous books: The Moon and Madness (Imprint Academic, 2011) and The Story of Nursing in British Mental Hospitals: Echoes from the Corridors (Routledge, 2016). He is a regular writer for Salisbury Review magazine.
In partnership Purssell and McCrae have written several papers on research methodology and literature reviewing for healthcare journals. Both have extensive experience of teaching literature reviewing at all academic levels, and explaining complex concepts in a way that is accessible to all