A systematic review: principles and steps

Abstract

There has been an explosion of literature information over the last decades along with a large increasing primary research publication. On the one hand, this process has been accompanied by an expansion in the range of different methodological approaches and reviews. The first aim of this publication is to give a short overview regarding the main differences among the reviews, then secondly the author focuses on the frequently used method, the so-called systematic review because there are significant inconsistences and variabilities how to properly conduct and report a systematic review and it can lead to misleading results. The systematic review has been performed in various and popular fields like nursing, sport, medicine, health care, psychologic, anaesthesiology. The third aim this publication is to provide a comprehensive summary regarding how to conduct and implement a systematic review. Results show that it is necessary and useful to implement a PRISMA checklist and a PICO flow chart. In this publication the second part connect to a hot topic namely agriculture. In the case of agriculture, the literature of systematic reviews can also be found however these reviews focus on a little part of economic and social matters as smart agriculture, health and safety in agriculture works and landscape and there are only a few literatures examining other aspect of agriculture like productivity and efficiency. Moreover, there is a gap in literature of systematic reviews examine the environmental aspect. The last objective, a longer-term aim, will be to report and conduct a systematic literature review regarding relevant topic in agriculture I connection with climate change, productivity and efficiency and will contribute the existing literature in this field.