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URL http://www.acatoday.org/JacaDisplay1.cfm?CID=3018
Journal JACA Online. 2008 Jul;45(5):Online access only p 24-25
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Abstract/Notes Excerpt: The classic narrative review amounts to an essay describing a series of studies pertaining to a particular diagnostic or treatment method. The authors do not always provide the inclusion criteria for the studies selected for review, which means the search strategy might be quite subjective and difficult for another reviewer to replicate. Moreover, only rarely do narrative reviewers use any formal procedures to rate the quality of the included studies, so the results of well-executed, rigorous studies have to compete in the reader’s mind with the results of less rigorous and perhaps less useful studies. Thus, a narrative review often leaves us without conviction that all the data have been identified and without confidence that the author has distinguished high- from low-quality studies. This clearly makes all the difference in the world.

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