This section should allow the reader to clearly follow how the included studies were identified and selected for inclusion in the review. In addition, the number of papers excluded should also be stated. There should be a narrative description of the process accompanied by a flowchart of review process (from the PRISMA statement) detailing the flow from the search, through study selection, duplicates, full text retrieval, and any additions from 3rd search, appraisal, extraction and synthesis
Details of full-text articles retrieved for critical appraisal should be given. There should be separate appendices for details of included and excluded studies and for excluded studies; reasons should be stated on why they were excluded.
Description of studies
This section of the results should also include an overall description of the included studies (with reference to the table in the appendices), with the main aim to provide some context to the results section and sufficient detail for the reader to determine if the included studies are similar enough to combine in meta-analysis. Specific items/points of interest from individual studies may also be highlighted here. Additional details may include the assessment of methodological quality, characteristics of the participants and types of interventions and outcomes.
Where a systematic review has several foci, the results should be presented in a logical, structured way, relevant to the specific questions. The roles of tables and appendices should not be overlooked. Adding extensive detail on studies in the results section may crowd the findings, making them less accessible to readers, hence the use of tables and in text reference to specific appendices is encouraged.
Methodological quality
This section should focus on methodological quality as determined by the relevant critical appraisal checklist. There should be a narrative summary of the overall methodological quality of the included studies, which can be supported (optional) by a table showing the results of the critical appraisal (see Table 1 for example). Where only few studies are identified, or there are specific items of interest from included studies, these should be addressed in the narrative also, particularly where studies were deficient, or particularly good. i.e. with clear narrative regarding risk of bias/rigour of included studies. Use of N/A should also be justified in the text.
Table 1. Critical appraisal results for included studies using the JBI-Prevalence Critical Appraisal Checklist
Study | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q5 | Q6 | Q7 | Q8 | Q9 | Q10 |
Author(s) ref | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | U | Y | N | Y | U |
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Y - Yes, N - No, U - Unclear
Findings of the review
Although there is no defined structure for this section, the findings of the review should flow logically from the review objection/question i.e. they must ultimately answer the question! Findings should be extracted and a narrative, tabular, graphical or meta-analysis should constitute part of this section.
With detail on the studies reported, the results section then focuses on providing a detailed description of the results of the review. For clarity and consistency of presentation, JBI recommends that the reviewer, in discussion with their review panel, give consideration to whether the specific review question used to structure the results section, or whether the findings can be reported under the conditions specified in the protocol. When a systematic review seeks to address multiple questions, the results may be structured in such a way that particular conditions are reported according to the specific questions.
Given there is no clear international standard or agreement on the structure or key components of this section of a review report, and the level of variation evidence in published systematic reviews, the advice here is general in nature. In general, findings are discussed textually and then supported with meta-graphs, tables, figures as appropriate. Graphs may be particularly useful for presenting prevalence and incidence data where meta-analysis is not possible.
The focus should be on presenting information in a clear and concise manner. Any large or complex diagrams/tables/figures should be included as appendices so as not to break the flow of text. Meta-view graphs represent a specific item of analysis that can be incorporated in to the results section of the review. However, the results are more than meta-view graphs, and whether this section is structured based on the intervention of interest, or some other structure, the content of this section needs to present the results with clarity.
Synthesis of Research Findings
It is important to combine the studies in an appropriate manner; otherwise the conclusions that are drawn will not be valid. Where possible study results should be pooled in statistical meta-analysis. Where statistical pooling is not possible the findings can be presented in narrative summary or graphical form, as previously discussed.
This section of the report should describe the data type , the required effects model used (random/fixed), the statistical method of meta-analysis required and the size of confidence limits to be included in the calculations. The method used will depend on the data type.