LibGuides: Nursing: Literature Review

Selected Review Types

Want to learn more about the different kinds of literature reviews and which kind might best suit your need? Take a look at these articles which explain different types of reviews, as well as systematic and scoping reviews.

Arksey, H., & O'Malley, L. (2005). Scoping studies: Towards a methodological framework. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8(1), 19-32. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364557032000119616
Cronin P, Ryan F, & Coughlan M. (2008). Undertaking a literature review: a step-by-step approach. British Journal of Nursing, 17(1), 38–43. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2008.17.1.28059
Grant MJ, & Booth A. (2009). A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26(2), 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x
Levac, D., Colquhoun, H., & O'Brien, K. K. (2010). Scoping studies: Advancing the methodology. Implementation Science : IS, 5(1), 69-69. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-5-69
Munn, Z., Stern, C., Aromataris, E., Lockwood, C., & Jordan, Z. (2018). What kind of systematic review should I conduct? A proposed typology and guidance for systematic reviewers in the medical and health sciences. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 18(1),

Types of literature reviews include:

Traditional/narrative. This type of review critiques and summaries a body of literature and draws conclusions about the topic in question.
Systematic literature review. These reviews use a rigorous and well-defined approach to reviewing the literature in a specific subject area.
Meta-analysis. A form of systematic review which is largely a statistical technique. It takes findings from several studies on the same subject and analyses them using stardardized statistical procedures.
Meta-synthesis. A non-statistical technique used to integrate, evaluate and interpret the findings of multiple qualitative research studies.

The above definitions are from Cronin, P. BJN, 2008, vol 17, No 1 p. 38-39.