Systematic reviews: an essential component of health researcher training

What is it about?

Systematic reviews make a vital contribution to the pool of evidence we use to support healthcare decisions. By systematically searching for, appraising and summarising the totally of evidence available, they limit bias and allow for a greater degree of confidence when using them to inform current practice. The history of medicine is littered with examples where a failure to consider the totality of evidence available has led to patient harm.

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Why is it important?

Systematic reviews can protect patients from harm. As just one example, despite growing evidence from the 1960s, a significant proportion of parents were still placing their babies to sleep on their front, an activity that extended into the 1990s. In 2005, a systematic review of observational studies showed a more than four-fold increase in deaths associated with the prone position compared with sleeping supine. This conclusion could (and should) have been demonstrated, with statistical certainty, 35 years before had a systematic search and pooling of available evidence been carried out – it has been estimated that tens of thousands of cot deaths could have been prevented had this been done. The essay gives further examples of where systematic reviews could have or did protect patients from harm.

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