Meta-narrative and realist reviews: guidance, rules, publication standards and quality appraisal

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Abstract

Recently, there has been an expansion of different forms of systematic review of research and the development of guidance and standards about particular types of review. These reviews can be best understood within a broad framework of the dimensions on which reviews differ, and how the review methodology relates to the methodology of primary research. Similarly, publication standards can be understood in terms of their relation to other standards such as guidance and rules for undertaking reviews and systems for appraising the quality of reviews. This commentary is written with special reference to the publication standards for meta-narrative and realist reviews being published in BMC Medicine.

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RAMESES publication standards: meta-narrative reviews

Geoff Wong, Trish Greenhalgh, Gill Westhorp … (2013)

Background Meta-narrative review is one of an emerging menu of new approaches to qualitative and mixed-method systematic review. A meta-narrative review seeks to illuminate a heterogeneous topic area by highlighting the contrasting and complementary ways in which researchers have studied the same or a similar topic. No previous publication standards exist for the reporting of meta-narrative reviews. This publication standard was developed as part of the RAMESES (Realist And MEta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards) project. The project's aim is to produce preliminary publication standards for meta-narrative reviews. Methods We (a) collated and summarized existing literature on the principles of good practice in meta-narrative reviews; (b) considered the extent to which these principles had been followed by published reviews, thereby identifying how rigor may be lost and how existing methods could be improved; (c) used a three-round online Delphi method with an interdisciplinary panel of national and international experts in evidence synthesis, meta-narrative reviews, policy and/or publishing to produce and iteratively refine a draft set of methodological steps and publication standards; (d) provided real-time support to ongoing meta-narrative reviews and the open-access RAMESES online discussion list so as to capture problems and questions as they arose; and (e) synthesized expert input, evidence review and real-time problem analysis into a definitive set of standards. Results We identified nine published meta-narrative reviews, provided real-time support to four ongoing reviews and captured questions raised in the RAMESES discussion list. Through analysis and discussion within the project team, we summarized the published literature, and common questions and challenges into briefing materials for the Delphi panel, comprising 33 members. Within three rounds this panel had reached consensus on 20 key publication standards, with an overall response rate of 90%. Conclusion This project used multiple sources to draw together evidence and expertise in meta-narrative reviews. For each item we have included an explanation for why it is important and guidance on how it might be reported. Meta-narrative review is a relatively new method for evidence synthesis and as experience and methodological developments occur, we anticipate that these standards will evolve to reflect further theoretical and methodological developments. We hope that these standards will act as a resource that will contribute to improving the reporting of meta-narrative reviews. To encourage dissemination of the RAMESES publication standards, this article is co-published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing and is freely accessible on Wiley Online Library (http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jan). Please see related articles http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/21 and http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/22

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Synthesising qualitative and quantitative evidence: a review of possible methods.

Shona Agarwal, Bridget Young, David Jones … (2004)

The limitations of traditional forms of systematic review in making optimal use of all forms of evidence are increasingly evident, especially for policy-makers and practitioners. There is an urgent need for robust ways of incorporating qualitative evidence into systematic reviews. In this paper we provide a brief overview and critique of a selection of strategies for synthesising qualitative and quantitative evidence, ranging from techniques that are largely qualitative and interpretive through to techniques that are largely quantitative and integrative. A range of methods is available for synthesising diverse forms of evidence. These include narrative summary, thematic analysis, grounded theory, meta-ethnography, meta-study, realist synthesis, Miles and Huberman's data analysis techniques, content analysis, case survey, qualitative comparative analysis and Bayesian meta-analysis. Methods vary in their strengths and weaknesses, ability to deal with qualitative and quantitative forms of evidence, and type of question for which they are most suitable. We identify a number of procedural, conceptual and theoretical issues that need to be addressed in moving forward with this area, and emphasise the need for existing techniques to be evaluated and modified, rather than inventing new approaches.

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Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Med

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Med

Title: BMC Medicine

Publisher: BioMed Central

ISSN (Electronic): 1741-7015

Publication date Collection: 2013

Publication date (Electronic): 29 January 2013

Volume: 11

Page: 22

Affiliations

[1 ]EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London, 18 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0NR, UK

Article

Publisher ID: 1741-7015-11-22

DOI: 10.1186/1741-7015-11-22

PMC ID: 3606472

PubMed ID: 23360691

SO-VID: d3c0b642-74f3-4ab0-a0a4-da5334ca389e

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This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Meta-narrative and realist reviews: guidance, rules, publication standards and quality appraisal

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RAMESES publication standards: meta-narrative reviews

Synthesising qualitative and quantitative evidence: a review of possible methods.

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