Evidence synthesis seeks to identify, evaluate and combine data from existing research studies to provide best evidence for treatments, tests and interventions. This helps decision-making, and provides evidence for practice and policy-making as well as identifying gaps in the research. This normally includes a methodical and comprehensive synthesis of literature focused on a well-formulated research question.
Evidence syntheses should be based on systematic processes to identify and collate relevant evidence that meets pre-specified eligibility criteria and to minimise the influence of bias. Combining individual study results and considering differences can reduce uncertainty and help make sense of conflicting study findings.
Whatever kind of evidence synthesis is conducted, appropriate, rigorous and transparent methods must be used so that the conclusions can be trusted.
Cochrane tools and resources will guide your systematic review whether or not it is a Cochrane Review.
Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions
The JBI manual for evidence synthesis guides authors who wish to conduct systematic and scoping reviews following JBI methodologies.
PRISMA stands for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. PRISMA has several extensions, including extensions for protocols and scoping reviews. PRISMA checklists assist authors to completely report (when writing up a review) why their systematic review was done, what methods they used, and what they found.
searchRxiv (pronounced “search archive”) is an openly accessible, moderated repository for searches which welcomes submissions from all disciplines. This resource enables individuals to create and permanently store a DOI-stamped record of their search along with key bibliographic information such as title, original date and update dates, a description of the search, keywords, validation information and database details.