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Systematic Reviews

Systematic Reviews

So, you think you want to do (or assign) a Systematic Review?

Systematic reviews have become a popular research approach, but many people misunderstand them. Sometimes, students, wanting to pad their CV or Residency Application, OR well-meaning faculty will advise students or residents to complete a systematic review as an “easy” research project without fully understanding the methods and resources required.

This misunderstanding leads to the development of poorly done “systematic reviews” that (1) lack the academic rigor and required systematic methods defined in an appropriate protocol (2) lack well-developed and well-documented search strategies, and (3) fail to follow other methodological and reporting standards (PRISMA 2020 Checklist Items 1,4,6,7) that peer reviewers should look for when considering the manuscript for publication.

  • A systematic review is not a suitable project for a single student/resident with no prior experience in this methodology. 
  • It is also generally not an appropriate project for a single student and a single faculty advisor who is not an expert on systematic review methodology.
  • Most health science graduate students have not had the appropriate experience or training to independently develop robust protocols and search strategies for systematic reviews. A lack of familiarity with appropriate methods for SR projects is very likely to lead to wasted time and unpublishable work. 
  • A systematic review is not an appropriate short-term project; systematic reviews can take an average of a year or more to complete.
  • Consider that a true systematic review requires a full expert team that includes librarians, statisticians, and methodologists; follows a rigorous methodology that includes adopting a critical appraisal tool (risk-of-bias) and a standard for synthesizing the evidence; and takes on average 67.3 weeks to complete (Borah et al., 2017). 

Content on this page was borrowed/adapted from this Johns Hopkins Welch Medical Library Systematic Review guide

Research Articles

  • Borah, R., Brown, A. W., Capers, P. L., & Kaiser, K. A. (2017). Analysis of the time and workers needed to conduct systematic reviews of medical interventions using data from the PROSPERO registry. BMJ open, 7(2), e012545. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012545
  • Ioannidis J. P. (2016). The Mass Production of Redundant, Misleading, and Conflicted Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses. The Milbank quarterly, 94(3), 485–514. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.12210
  • Lipke, L., & Price, C. (2025). Rethinking Systematic Review Assignment Design in Graduate Health Science Education from Librarians’ Perspectives. Hypothesis: Research Journal for Health Information Professionals, 37(1). https://doi.org/10.18060/28463
  • Price C. Systematic review as class assignments? [Internet]. Covidence. 2022 [cited 2023 Nov 8]. Available from: https://www.covidence.org/blog/elementor-2112/
  • Roberts, I., & Ker, K. (2015). How systematic reviews cause research waste. Lancet (London, England), 386(10003), 1536. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00489-4
  • Uttley, L., Quintana, D. S., Montgomery, P., Carroll, C., Page, M. J., Falzon, L., Sutton, A., & Moher, D. (2023). The problems with systematic reviews: a living systematic review. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 156, 30–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2023.01.011

The following alternatives were mentioned in this article:

Annotated Bibliography of Classic Articles

Review Typologies

There exists within the corpus of literature a handful of classic “typology” articles. These articles aim to describe different approaches to evidence syntheses through literature review methodologies.

Critically Appraise a Systematic Review

Protocol Exercise

Ask students to select an appropriate topic and develop a protocol based on the PRISMA-P protocol reporting guideline (Moher et al, 2015). Developing a protocol ahead of the review helps students understand all that is involved in the workflow and process. Instructors can use the PRISMA-P Checklist as a rubric.

Search Methods Exercise

This exercise may work best in tandem with the PRISMA-P protocol exercise. After students have developed a protocol, have them develop, document, and carry out a search and screen the results. Ask them to write the search methods for their future proposed manuscript, where the PRISMA-S (Rethlefsen et al., 2021) functions as a rubric.