Statswork Systematic Review Vs Meta-Analysis

Systematic review and meta-analysis are often confused and used interchangeably albeit having distinct differences between them. Both are reviews of high quality evidence that form a part of literature review. 




What is a Systematic review?

 A systemic review seeks to find answer to a defined question by collecting and synthesizing high quality evidence from different studies. It is an exhaustive summary of all scientific evidence substantiated to a particular question. Systematic reviews came to be as a way to improve the quality of literature review. Systematic review applies to all types of research, both qualitative and quantitative. Systematic review evolved in the health care industry and clinical trials, but has since found its application in variety of fields like social sciences, astronomy, etc.


What is a Meta-analysis? 


Meta-analysis integrates statistically similar studies using statistical principles to achieve an estimate of common point of truth between the studies. Since it is an application of statistics to integrate studies, meta-analysis involves only quantitative studies. Meta-analysis is often a subset of systematic review that identifies, selects, and combines the results of studies and applies statistical principles to achieve a pooled estimated with a higher power of statistical certainty. The principle behind meta-analysis is that all conceptually similar studies have certain core truth behind them which can be estimated to a close degree of accuracy by a weighted integration of studies.

Meta-analysis helps to identify if a study shows more variation than what is expected. Thus, the quality of the methodology of studies can be assessed.
Meta-analysis is applied in fields such as medicine, education, psychology, criminal justice, sociology, social psychology, finance and economics, political science, etc. Pharmaceutical companies use meta-analysis to know their model’s generalizability, developing and validating different prediction models.

Drug approvals processes are required to undergo meta-analysis by regulatory bodies.


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