Dijkers Marcel P J M
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York 10029-6574, USA.
Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2009 May;88(5):423-30. doi: 10.1097/phm.0b013e31819c59c6.
Reviews offer examinations of published material on a topic, and are becoming indispensable in keeping up with an exponentially growing rehabilitation literature. Adherents of the systematic reviews that support evidence-based practice have been quite dismissive of narrative (traditional, qualitative, and nonsystematic) reviews. However, the types of problems that plague the latter may also be found in systematic reviews, which, in addition, have problems of their own. It is argued here that reviews play a number of roles in scientific research and professional practice such as answering specific clinical questions, pooling data, comparing research, synthesizing complementary studies, offering guidance in uncharted fields, and "translating" research between disciplinary traditions. For some of these purposes, systematic reviews are better; for others, a narrative review is more suitable. Both types can be improved to serve the reader better in keeping up with the literature.
综述提供了对某一主题已发表材料的审视，并且在跟上呈指数级增长的康复文献方面正变得不可或缺。支持循证实践的系统综述的支持者们一直对叙述性（传统的、定性的和非系统性的）综述颇为不屑。然而，困扰后者的各类问题在系统综述中也可能存在，此外，系统综述自身也有问题。本文认为，综述在科学研究和专业实践中发挥着诸多作用，比如回答特定的临床问题、汇总数据、比较研究、综合互补性研究、在未知领域提供指导以及在不同学科传统之间“翻译”研究。对于其中一些目的，系统综述更胜一筹；而对于其他目的，叙述性综述则更为合适。两种类型都可以加以改进，以便在让读者跟上文献方面更好地为其服务。
