Conducting a Systematic Review of the Literature.

This overview of the systematic review provides guidance regarding how and when to use this approach to a research question. High quality systematic reviews are essential to assist health care practitioners keep current with the large and rapidly growing body of scientific evidence. The systematic review is a transparent and reproducible synthesis of all the available evidence on a clearly defined research question or topic.

Narrative Reviews of the Literature: An overview.

This short report guides the reader through the types of narrative reviews and describes the narrative review process from conception to completion. This report is an overview on the topic of literature reviews and serves to provide guidance regarding how and when to use a narrative review approach. Authors have many purposes for selecting the narrative review of the literature including introducing an original research manuscript, reviewing a critical topic for a scholarly journal, creating an introductory chapter for a thesis, or completing a classroom assignment.