Systematic review: general notions

Abstract

Systematic review is a useful methodology in health, as it makes it possible to identify the best evidence and sumamrize them so as to found proposals for changes in the areas of prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation. The purpose of this article is to provide support for planning systematic reviews by answering the following questions: What is evidence-based practice? What is systematic review? Should systematic reviews be anchored on qualitative or quantitative research? What are the pertinent information sources to identify the evidence? What is evidence? What are the procedures to validate a systematic review? How can the quality of evidence be evaluated? What methodology is used to summarize the evidence? How should a systematic review be planned?