Narrative vs systematic vs scoping review | What’s the difference?
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- I often get asked what the difference between a narrative review and a systematic review, or what is the difference between a narrative review and a scoping review is. This is also something I wondered about when I was new to the world of research. In this video, I’m going to shed some light on this question.
Let’s first look at what a systematic review and scoping review are. A systematic review is done to identify research studies published on a certain topic, with the primary aim to recommend best practice on a certain topic and inform policy. This is very useful if there are discrepancies in the way in which a certain practice is performed, but also to recommend new approaches to practice. Another type of review is a scoping review and those are done to determine the research out there on a certain topic. Scoping reviews do not involve a critical appraisal process like systematic reviews do, but they are also conducted using a rigorous and systematic process. Another video on the Research Masterminds UA-cam channel elaborates on the difference between these two types of reviews. Have a look at the Systematic Reviews playlist (see link below).
A narrative review, also referred to as a traditional review, summarises and presents the available research on a topic. You will commonly see a traditional or narrative review as part of a thesis or dissertation.
A narrative review is more biased than systematic and scoping reviews as it relies on the author’s background knowledge on a topic. Zachary Munn, and his colleagues, all of them systematic review experts, alludes to the difference in a very useful article published in 2018. You’ll find a link to this article below.
Munn et al list the differences between scoping reviews and narrative reviews, but the same goes for the difference between systematic reviews and narrative reviews. Scoping reviews:
1. “Are informed by an a priori protocol
2. Are systematic and often include exhaustive searching for information
3. Aim to be transparent and reproducible
4. Include steps to reduce error and increase reliability (such as the inclusion of multiple reviewers)
5. Ensure data is extracted and presented in a structured way”
In Table 1 of this article, the difference between the three types of review becomes clear.
How do you know if an article is a narrative review, or a systematic or scoping review? These three look different to one another, let’s have a look at an example of each.
Now that you know the difference between a narrative review, a scoping and a systematic review, you are ready to decide if a narrative review needs to be done or should it be a systematic or scoping review. If you know that you need to do a systematic review or scoping review, but you are not sure what the difference is, or if you can’t decide what type of systematic review you want to do, or even if you want to figure out the difference between a systematic review and meta-analysis, have a look at the Systematic Reviews playlist on the Research Masterminds UA-cam channel to get your questions answered.
When things sometimes feel overwhelming in this research journey, know that we are all in it together. Just decide what your next step is and tackle one step at a time. Leave me a comment in the comment box below this video if you have any questions and let us see how we can help fellow researchers with the same dilemma through your question.
Systematic Reviews playlist on the Research Masterminds UA-cam channel: • Systematic reviews
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Munn et al (2018) Systematic review or scoping review? Guidance for authors when choosing between a systematic or scoping review approach, BMC Medical Research Methodology: bmcmedresmetho...
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Very helpful thanks. My course involves writing what is being called a Narrative review of only 5 articles. Yet we needed to go through a process of searching for articles with a systematic process, applying delimiters, inclusions/exclusions, CASP tools for article assessment, data extraction and synthesis of the findings, discussion and conclusion. So I have been confused as to what my review really is. But now after watching your video, I can kind of see that I am learning techniques within time constraints of the course, that apply to a systematic review - kind of like a mini version. So while my final product won't truly be a narrative review due to the systematic methods applied, it will be a bit of a blend of the 2 for learning purposes. Your instruction has clarified this for me, Thanks
I'm so glad it helped. Enjoy your course :-)
Soo helpful, Thanks
Thank you
Thanks a lot, its really informative and helpful, my question is there a methodology section should be included in the narrative literature?
Very relevant question. Add a paragraph to the narrative review explaining which databases you searched for, using what keywords. I recently did a live workshop on how to do a literature review, maybe it will help you. Here it is: ua-cam.com/video/3txbsAVX-Bo/v-deo.htmlsi=HAkBkxc8OGflmcKH
The differences clearly spelt out.
Is it often the case that a scoping review is just not feasible as compared to a narrative review? It seems that because scoping reviews can be a lot more exploratory than an SR proper, they can pull far too much literature to be reasonable for a team to sift through. In these instances is the narrative review the recommended approach?
We are often face with a lack of human resources and time to soft through masses of literature, so I get where you are coming from 100%. Considering that the same topic is explored: if a narrative review is done, but less research is included, the narrative review may be biased, as what is commonly the case with narrative reviews. However, as you say, a scoping review on the same topic may attract a lot of research, almost impossible to go through. There are different options to consider:
1. What is the requirement? Is a narrative review required such as what typically forms part of Chapter 2 of a dissertation? Or is a scoping review required because it will form the focus of the dissertation?
2. The scoping review methodology is much more rigorous than the narrative review methodology, so if it is at all possible to do a scoping review, do that. Consider reducing the scope by limiting the timeframe of included papers, only including children or adults or a specific population, limiting the information sought to certain countries, for example. This will depend on the nature of your study and what you want to achieve.
If you find another way to approach this, please share it with us so that we can learn with you.
Thanks for the very helpful video. If these papers are free to share, could you drop a link to them so we can have an example systematic review paper? Any other extensive paper would do. Thanks.
I found this answer in the playlist. Thanks
I'm glad :-)