Step by step guide to do a systematic review and meta-analysis for medical professionals

摘要

Introduction Systematic review and meta-analysis are statistical tools used to review researches performed on a same topic. They extract the collective effect of the studies performed on the topic of interest after statistically analysing the data of all the studies included. Aims and objectives Systematic reviews and meta-analysis are getting more and more popular in the medical field. Statistics is never the strong aspect of medical professionals, and facing a large number of statistical tests and values could be quite confusing for them. The aim of this article is to simplify these two very important research modalities for medical professionals. Conclusion This article will provide a step-to-step guide for the medical colleagues to perform a meta-analysis if they are interested.