Abstract
Systematic literature reviews including meta-analysis are invaluable scientific activities. The rationale for such reviews is well established. Health care providers, researchers, and policy makers are inundated with unmanageable amounts of information; they need systematic reviews to efficiently integrate existing information and provide data for rational decision making. Systematic reviews establish whether scientific findings are consistent and can be generalised across populations, settings, and treatment variations, or whether findings vary significantly by particular subsets. Meta-analysis in particular can increase power and precision of estimates of treatment effects and exposure risks. Finally, explicit methods used in systematic reviews limit bias and, hopefully, will improve reliability and accuracy of conclusions.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 597-599 |
| Number of pages | 3 |
| Journal | British Medical Journal |
| Volume | 309 |
| Issue number | 6954 |
| State | Published - Sep 3 1994 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Medicine