Systematic Review of the Literature

Description

Need a systematic review of the literature … PICO Question: Among at-risk patients (P), what are effective strategies (I) in improving adherence to HIV PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) regimens(O)? My strategy is to review the literature, identify adherence issues, and devise a plan to improve adherence/compliance with PrEP. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Discussion Discuss the Evidence. In this section, what do the findings mean to the “average person who knows nothing about your topic Results Description of Studies (Your sample, not a ‘book report’ of each study) • What domains did you assess and appraise? • How many reviewers assessed the studies for your review? • How many studies were quantitative? Qualitative? Mixed methods? Group according to similarities. • What were the instruments used to examine the phenomenon of interest? Were there any similarities? Differences? • Anything significantly different about the studies? For example—here is where you compare & contrast—did 8 of your studies have over 100 participants and one study didn’t? Need to inform the reader. Description of Study Population • Describe your sample (your 8 or 10 studies). Do not give a book report of each study. Instead group the studies with a focus on: o What was the total # of participants from all 8-10 studies? o What were the average ages (mean) of participants in all the studies? o The gender of the participants from all the studies. Group according to similarities and/or differences. Use n for a sample, and N for a population. o Occupation of participants? For example, how many were staff nurses (n = #) compared to nurse managers (n = #). o Settings where data collected? For example, labor and delivery unit compared to medical surgical unit. o Include any variable that is relevant to your review that better describes your participants and what you are measuring, ie happiness? Job satisfaction?. Study Characteristics • Think about your matrix table. o Where were the studies conducted? All in the US, or elsewhere? Hospitals? Rural versus city? o What studies were excluded and why? Study Interventions • Summarize the interventions from your sample. For example— o Intervention 1: Compare and contrast the 5 studies in the same paragraph with respect to their findings o Intervention 2: Compare and contrast the 3 studies in the same paragraph that used the same intervention and what did they find Study Outcomes • Did all the studies measure the same outcome? Did they all use the same method to measure the outcome? (In this Results section, you summarize the characteristics, quality and findings of the 8-10 articles in your review). Findings In one paragraph, summarize all of your findings from above, ie total # of participants included in the review; how many women (frequency, %) and how many men (frequency, %). The average age across studies; where most of the studies were conducted, ie hospital versus clinic. Outcome 1 Outcome 2 • ?” How do your findings relate to nursing practice? Nursing research? Nursing education? • How do your findings compare to previous studies? Strengths and Limitations • This section is to discuss YOUR review, not the strengths or limitations of each study. Did you have enough current and available research to answer your PICO question? For example, a limitation could be that not every quantitative study used the same instrument (ie you couldn’t measure apples to apples, and oranges to oranges). What more do you still need to know (this is your gap in the literature)? What were your biases in doing this review?