To: Abebe Alemu
It is possible to use the SEM for health promotion to conduct a systematic review of quantitative studies without meta-analysis. The SEM can help to guide the formulation of the review question, the selection of relevant studies, the assessment of study quality, and the interpretation of the findings. For example, a review question can specify which level or levels of the SEM are of interest (e.g., individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, or policy), and which outcomes are relevant (e.g., behavioral, psychological, physiological, or environmental).
The selection of studies can be based on whether they address the specified level(s) and outcome(s) of the SEM. The quality assessment can consider how well the studies measure and control for potential confounding factors at different levels of the SEM.
The synthesis can group the studies according to their level of intervention or analysis, and compare and contrast their findings across levels. The interpretation can discuss how the findings relate to the SEM framework and what implications they have for health promotion practice and policy.
Sources:
1. https://interfaithsustain.com/ecological-model
2. https://www.heretohelp.bc.ca/infosheet/positive-mental-health-and-a-health-promotion-perspective
3. https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1479-5868-11-22
Yes, it is possible!
The social-ecological model is a framework that recognizes the complex and dynamic interactions between individuals and their environments that influence health outcomes.
It can be used to identify the factors and interventions at different levels (individual, interpersonal, institutional, community, and policy) that affect health behaviours and outcomes.
A systematic review that uses this model can synthesize the evidence from different types of studies and interventions without aggregating the effect estimates using meta-analysis.
However, conducting a synthesis without meta-analysis can pose some challenges for reporting the methods and results of the review.
There is no clear definition or guidance on how to perform a narrative synthesis, which is often used as an alternative to meta-analysis. This can lead to a lack of transparency and consistency in the reporting of the synthesis process, the presentation of the data, and the interpretation of the findings.
To address this issue, a reporting guideline called Synthesis Without Meta-analysis (SWiM) has been developed to promote clear and transparent reporting for reviews of interventions that use alternative synthesis methods to meta-analysis of effect estimates. The SWiM guideline consists of nine items that cover how studies are grouped, the standardized metric used for the synthesis, the synthesis method, how data are presented, a summary of the synthesis findings, and limitations of the synthesis. The SWiM guideline can help reviewers to report their synthesis methods and results in a comprehensive and rigorous way.
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