Mercator Research Institute on Climate Change and Global Commons, Berlin, Germany.
Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2020 Dec;4(12):1582-1589. doi: 10.1038/s41559-020-01295-x. Epub 2020 Oct 12.
Traditional approaches to reviewing literature may be susceptible to bias and result in incorrect decisions. This is of particular concern when reviews address policy- and practice-relevant questions. Systematic reviews have been introduced as a more rigorous approach to synthesizing evidence across studies; they rely on a suite of evidence-based methods aimed at maximizing rigour and minimizing susceptibility to bias. Despite the increasing popularity of systematic reviews in the environmental field, evidence synthesis methods continue to be poorly applied in practice, resulting in the publication of syntheses that are highly susceptible to bias. Recognizing the constraints that researchers can sometimes feel when attempting to plan, conduct and publish rigorous and comprehensive evidence syntheses, we aim here to identify major pitfalls in the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews, making use of recent examples from across the field. Adopting a 'critical friend' role in supporting would-be systematic reviews and avoiding individual responses to police use of the 'systematic review' label, we go on to identify methodological solutions to mitigate these pitfalls. We then highlight existing support available to avoid these issues and call on the entire community, including systematic review specialists, to work towards better evidence syntheses for better evidence and better decisions.
传统的文献综述方法可能容易受到偏差的影响，并导致错误的决策。当综述涉及与政策和实践相关的问题时，这尤其令人关注。系统综述作为一种更严格的方法被引入，旨在综合研究之间的证据；它们依赖于一整套基于证据的方法，旨在最大限度地提高严谨性，并最大限度地减少对偏差的敏感性。尽管系统综述在环境领域越来越受欢迎，但证据综合方法在实践中仍未得到很好的应用，导致发表的综述极易受到偏差的影响。认识到研究人员在尝试进行严谨和全面的证据综合时有时会感到的限制，我们旨在在这里确定系统综述进行和报告中的主要缺陷，并利用该领域最近的例子。我们采用“批判性朋友”的角色来支持潜在的系统综述，并避免对警察使用“系统综述”标签的个别回应，然后确定减轻这些缺陷的方法。然后，我们强调现有的支持，以避免这些问题，并呼吁整个社区，包括系统综述专家，共同努力为更好的证据和更好的决策进行更好的证据综合。
