A guide to evaluating systematic reviews for the busy clinicians or reluctant readers - Chiropractic & Manual Therapies

The major types of reviewsReviews can be divided into three main groups: narrative, systematic, and other transparent types. However, increasingly the term ‘systematic’ seems to indicate that the review has also a critical view on the articles that were scrutinized. Systematic reviews are stringent research projectsA SR has many elements in common with an ‘ordinary’ research project, such as clear pre-hoc research questions, systematic collection of data, transparent analysis of data, and objective interpretation of the results [12]. The studies with a high RoB and/or of poor quality should not be considered equal to those done properly [18]. The inclusion of less robust/trustable study results risks leading to unreliable, often inflated estimates and can result in inaccurate recommendations influencing clinical practice.