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Article Type
Special Issue
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Understanding and Appraising Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis
1Department of Pediatric and Preventive, Dentistry, Santosh Dental College and Hospital, No. 1 Santosh Nagar, Pratap, Vihar, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India.
DOI: 10.17796/1053-4628-41.5.317 Vol.41,Issue 5,September 2017 pp.317-326
Published: 01 September 2017
*Corresponding Author(s): Neeti Mittal E-mail: dr.neetipgi@gmail.com
Systematic reviews and meta-analysis seek to answer a pre-framed research question to lead to a valid answer through a systematic, explicit and reproducible method of locating; identifying, including and appraising appropriate trials. The results are synthesized considering the methodological rigor of included trials. While the meta-analysis quantitatively pools the results from individual included studies, the systematic review summarizes the findings as qualitative conclusions. These reviews are crux of evidence based dentistry for various stake-holders, i.e., clinicians, researchers and policy-makers. Although the meticulous methodology of systematic review and meta-analysis minimizes the elements of bias, yet the validity and reliability of their findings should be explored prior to translating their conclusions to practice. The goal of this paper is to familiarize readers with rationale, conduct and appraisal of systematic review and meta-analysis. Further, guidance is provided on tracing potential elements of bias in the review to enable readers to judge the quality of evidence generated from the review.
AMSTAR, Evidence based dentistry, Meta-analysis, Systematic review.
Neeti Mittal,Manoj Goyal,Parteek K Mittal. Understanding and Appraising Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry. 2017. 41(5);317-326.
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