Systematic literature review is the process of systematically identifying, assembling and summarizing pieces of evidence from research resources. The core of a literature review is summarizing the error-free review process while using different types of protocols and transparency. The basic aim of the literature review is to discover the ways of the most relevant research on the given research questions. However, the used approaches to match the relevancy must be based on the appropriate methodology and system. Furthermore, in a systematic literature review, the research needs to concentrate on the research questions, real inclusion and exclusion criteria, management, and data extraction to analyze the easiest approaches.
Easiest Ways to Do Systematic Literature Review
In the present research scenario, systematic reviews are the core of evidence-based research; however, it is not an easy task. The big question while writing a literature review is about the selection by the researchers, as they select some studies and refuse to accept others. Research considered highly valuable if the research questions are relevant. In the same way, research quality can be gained on the basis of evidence. There are several approaches to write literature reviews through easy ways; however, PRISMA “Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses” is considered as the best approach.
PRISMA is an evidence base system with the specific purpose of designing a flawless, transparent and comprehensive systematic review reporting system. It is beneficial for authors with accurate reporting systems like review protocols, systematic reviews and scoping reviews. It can maintain the quality of the research through transparent and accurate reporting approaches. PRISMA considers a beneficial road map for researchers and writers while describing the research material in an appropriate way and what other researchers found in their research. Therefore it is better to get dissertation proposal help from experts for effective use of it.
PRISMA Protocols
As mentioned above, PRISMA is a standardized protocol system in systematic literature review, which provides major benefits for researcher; reviewers and readers are permitted to check the value, strengths and weakness of the writing. It permits the replication in different review approaches and can also make the format and structure of the review, including PRISMA headings. PRISMA uses a twenty-four items’ checklist with a four-phase flow diagram. Following are the major protocols of PRISMA:
- Systematic Review Report Identification.
- Describes the review objectives (based on the existing literature and knowledge).
- Reviews questions and their objectives.
- Particularly defining the inclusion and while using proper criteria
- Describing information sources by specifying all registers, online websites, databases, references and other kinds of available material on the specific topic.
- Specifying the research strategy.
- Inclusion and exclusion criteria and its methodology while accepting or rejecting the research material for literature review.
- All approaches and their definitions, while collecting data and reports, are essential to maintain the compatibility of the research data.
- Assessment for risk biasness in research material, with all kinds of details regarding the flexibility of the data and resources.
Advance Protocols
- Specification of Risk Ratio and measurement effect of systematic literature review.
- Describing the approaches which can assess the confidence level and certainty in the evidence body while measuring the final output.
- Explaining the outputs of selection and search procedures, while defining the records in the other author’s literature review. Such protocol is practiced through flow diagrams.
- Summarizing statistics regarding every group in every study and estimating the confidence level and credible intervals used in the research.
- Presents outputs included investigations regarding heterogeneity causes in the research studies and the piece of literature review given by the author.
- PRISMA can provide the information of registration regarding review with proper registration number, name and other relevant details; these details have high values for upcoming research and also beneficial for the writing of literature review. Furthermore, it also assess the base of the data and where the review may be accessed, and the level of data authenticity also.
- With the use of PRISMA protocols, information regarding the funding sources of the research can be identified, which is beneficial for a literature review due to the present financial issues in academic institutions.
- It can provide the information of data availability either provided publically with free access or privately with any subscription.
Benefits of Using PRISMA
Several ways are there to check the quality of a systematic literature review, such as its relevance to the previous research, accurate research questions, new perspectives of presented research and appropriate study design. As mentioned in the protocol list of PRISMA, there are several benefits of using PRISMA in the systematic literature review. It is good for writing protocols and completing the reports of systematic reviews.
It is beneficial for readers also so that they can check the report quality of reviews with the appropriate information of peer review processing. Through PRISMA randomized trials, readers can evaluate the specific interventions and research types of systematic literature review. PRISMA protocols are important and considered as the safety against the selective decision and report making. Such protocols can further be beneficial to maintaining the transparency and quality of the systematic literature review to reduce the meta-biases.
It is worth noting that systematic reviews may be unhelpful and sometimes mislead the researchers due to the incapacity of the researcher and inappropriate ways to handle the gathered data. In such cases, a meta-analysis may be mishandled due to inappropriate data setting, and even sometimes, it is harmful too.
Conclusion
The quality of a systematic literature review is essential to maintain its relevance in the present and previous research database. However, it requires analyzing the research databases and finding those research materials from all available studies in transparent and unbiased ways. It is also significant to present the overall summary in balanced ways with specific consideration and on flawless bases.