Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Aug 1:47:46.
doi: 10.1186/s41182-019-0165-6. eCollection 2019.

A step by step guide for conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis with simulation data

Gehad Mohamed Tawfik  1   2 , Kadek Agus Surya Dila  2   3 , Muawia Yousif Fadlelmola Mohamed  2   4 , Dao Ngoc Hien Tam  2   5 , Nguyen Dang Kien  2   6 , Ali Mahmoud Ahmed  2   7 , Nguyen Tien Huy  8   9   10
Affiliations
Review

A step by step guide for conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis with simulation data

Gehad Mohamed Tawfik et al. Trop Med Health. .

Abstract

Background: The massive abundance of studies relating to tropical medicine and health has increased strikingly over the last few decades. In the field of tropical medicine and health, a well-conducted systematic review and meta-analysis (SR/MA) is considered a feasible solution for keeping clinicians abreast of current evidence-based medicine. Understanding of SR/MA steps is of paramount importance for its conduction. It is not easy to be done as there are obstacles that could face the researcher. To solve those hindrances, this methodology study aimed to provide a step-by-step approach mainly for beginners and junior researchers, in the field of tropical medicine and other health care fields, on how to properly conduct a SR/MA, in which all the steps here depicts our experience and expertise combined with the already well-known and accepted international guidance.We suggest that all steps of SR/MA should be done independently by 2-3 reviewers' discussion, to ensure data quality and accuracy.

Conclusion: SR/MA steps include the development of research question, forming criteria, search strategy, searching databases, protocol registration, title, abstract, full-text screening, manual searching, extracting data, quality assessment, data checking, statistical analysis, double data checking, and manuscript writing.

Keywords: Analysis; Data; Extraction; Results; Search; Study.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Detailed flow diagram guideline for systematic review and meta-analysis steps. Note: Star icon refers to “2–3 reviewers screen independently”
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
PRISMA flow diagram of studies’ screening and selection
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Random effect model forest plot for comparison of vaccine A versus placebo
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Publication bias funnel plot for comparison of vaccine A versus placebo
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Bello A, Wiebe N, Garg A, Tonelli M. Evidence-based decision-making 2: systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Methods Mol Biol (Clifton, NJ). 2015;1281:397–416. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-2428-8_24. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Khan KS, Kunz R, Kleijnen J, Antes G. Five steps to conducting a systematic review. J R Soc Med. 2003;96(3):118–121. doi: 10.1177/014107680309600304. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rys P, Wladysiuk M, Skrzekowska-Baran I, Malecki MT. Review articles, systematic reviews and meta-analyses: which can be trusted? Polskie Archiwum Medycyny Wewnetrznej. 2009;119(3):148–156. - PubMed
    1. Higgins JPT, Green S. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. 2011.
    1. Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG. Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. BMJ. 2009;339:b2535. doi: 10.1136/bmj.b2535. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources