Dear everyone,
I'm currently working in a review and I discovered an integrative review. I have read several articles related to that, but I'm not sure what are the differences between a literature review, an integrative review, and a systematic review. Anyone could help to explain it simply?
An integrative review is a general review of the existing literature as a 'systematic' process. It usually involves both quantitative and qualitative studies - hence 'integrative' (inclusive) - but is not always the case. Some people also call it a systematic review.
Literature Reviews
- summaries of relevant literature
- generally descriptive
- not necessarily any analysis of the literature
- methodology of the literature search is not always given
Literature review is very broad term, it may involve the narrative reviews as well which have not followed any systematic steps includes systematic searching, screening, data extraction and analysis. Because of this narrative reviews may be biased. Systematic reviews have added strength in this way as these are more objective. There is a very fine line between integrative reviews and systematic reviews, that is the reason they are used as synonymous sometimes. But according to my understanding, 'integrative reviews' terms is used when systematic review involve bot qualitative and quantitative studies.
Dear Nurhayati, Literature review is a broad term. There are basically five (5) types of literature review.
1. The integrative review: this is a summary of literature on a specific concept or content area. the research is usually summarized, analyzed and conclusions are drawn. It is a review that combines both qualitative and quantitative studies.
2. The systematic review: is a summary of past research using an objective and a rigorous approach. It is generally reproducible. it is used to summarize evidence regarding a clinical problem.
3. Meta-analysis: is a summary of past research (usually quantitative studies) using statistics. it is used to estimate the effect of interventions or relationships.
4. Meta-synthesis: is a summary of past research that combines findings from multiple qualitative studies. It is used to inform practice by summarizing processes or experience.
5. Umbrella review: This is relatively new. It is a type of review that includes all of the above mentioned types and processes.
Literature review vs systematic review:
1. The systematic review usually focused on a single question while literature review, not necessarily focused on a single question, but may describe an overview.
2. The systematic review has a protocol or plan, on the other hand, the literature review never included a protocol.
3. The systematic review has a search strategy to reproduce the results but the literature review does not have.
4. The systematic review has a protocol for inclusion and exclusion criteria but the literature review does not have.
5. The systematic review must assess the included studies to measure the quality/risk of bias while the literature review may or may not evaluate the study quality.
6. The process of a systematic review of data extraction is clear and specific while the literature review data extraction process is not clear.
An integrative review is simply a subset of a systematic review, typically undertaken where meta-analysis of one form or another cannot be carried out, but which allows for the combination of various methods to synthesize the findings.
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