'Evidence synthesis' is a collective term for types of literature research that bring together all relevant information on a well-formulated research question using a consistent, reproducible methodology. Most forms of evidence synthesis have one or more sets of guidelines for conducting a high-quality review. Systematic reviews and scoping reviews are two of the more common types.
Evidence syntheses should be conducted in an unbiased, reproducible way to provide evidence for practice and policy-making, as well as to identify gaps in the research. Some types include a meta-analysis, a more quantitative process of synthesizing and visualizing data retrieved from various studies.
Although systematic reviews are one of the most well-known review types, there are a variety of different types of reviews that vary in terms of scope, comprehensiveness, time constraints, and types of studies included. For more information about different review types, visit the Types of Reviews section.
