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Review
. 2016 May 26;5(2):184-91.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijppaw.2016.05.002. eCollection 2016 Aug.

On the benefits of systematic reviews for wildlife parasitology

Neal R Haddaway  1 , Maggie J Watson  2
Affiliations
Review

On the benefits of systematic reviews for wildlife parasitology

Neal R Haddaway et al. Int J Parasitol Parasites Wildl. .

Abstract

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are widely accepted as the best means to synthesise quantitative or qualitative scientific evidence. Many scientific fields have embraced these more rigorous review techniques as a means to bring together large and complex bodies of literature and their data. Unfortunately, due to perceived difficulties and unfamiliarity with processes, other fields are not using these options to review their literature. One way to provide guidance for a specific field is to examine critically recent reviews and meta-analyses and to explain the advantages and disadvantages of the various review techniques. In this paper, we examine review papers in the emerging field of wildlife parasitology and compare five different literature review types-configurative narrative review, aggregative scoping review, aggregative literature review, aggregative meta-analysis, and aggregative systematic review. We found that most literature reviews did not adequately explain the methodology used to find the literature under review. We also found that most literature reviews were not comprehensive nor did they critically appraise the literature under review. Such a lack severely reduces the reliability of the reviews. We encourage all authors to consider using systematic reviews in the future, and for authors and peer-reviewers to be aware of the limitations of non-systematic reviews.

Keywords: Comprehensiveness; Literature review; Meta-analysis; Parasitology; Reliability; Systematic review; Vote-counting; Wildlife.

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Figures

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Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Review types identified in the field of wildlife parasitology from 2010 to 2015.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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