How to Do a Literature Review Outline and Title Page on Impact of Technology on Job Design

ix.1. Introduction

Literature reviews play a critical role in scholarship considering scientific discipline remains, first and foremost, a cumulative effort (vom Brocke et al., 2009). Every bit in whatever academic subject, rigorous noesis syntheses are becoming indispensable in keeping up with an exponentially growing eHealth literature, profitable practitioners, academics, and graduate students in finding, evaluating, and synthesizing the contents of many empirical and conceptual papers. Among other methods, literature reviews are essential for: (a) identifying what has been written on a discipline or topic; (b) determining the extent to which a specific research area reveals any interpretable trends or patterns; (c) accumulation empirical findings related to a narrow research question to support evidence-based practice; (d) generating new frameworks and theories; and (e) identifying topics or questions requiring more investigation (Paré, Trudel, Jaana, & Kitsiou, 2015).

Literature reviews can have two major forms. The most prevalent one is the "literature review" or "background" section within a journal paper or a chapter in a graduate thesis. This section synthesizes the extant literature and normally identifies the gaps in knowledge that the empirical study addresses (Sylvester, Tate, & Johnstone, 2013). Information technology may likewise provide a theoretical foundation for the proposed study, substantiate the presence of the research problem, justify the research equally 1 that contributes something new to the cumulated knowledge, or validate the methods and approaches for the proposed written report (Hart, 1998; Levy & Ellis, 2006).

The second form of literature review, which is the focus of this chapter, constitutes an original and valuable work of research in and of itself (Paré et al., 2015). Rather than providing a base of operations for a researcher'southward own piece of work, it creates a solid starting point for all members of the customs interested in a item area or topic (Mulrow, 1987). The and then-called "review commodity" is a periodical-length paper which has an overarching purpose to synthesize the literature in a field, without collecting or analyzing any primary data (Green, Johnson, & Adams, 2006).

When appropriately conducted, review articles stand for powerful information sources for practitioners looking for country-of-the art evidence to guide their controlling and piece of work practices (Paré et al., 2015). Further, high-quality reviews go oft cited pieces of work which researchers seek out equally a offset articulate outline of the literature when undertaking empirical studies (Cooper, 1988; Rowe, 2014). Scholars who track and gauge the impact of articles have found that review papers are cited and downloaded more frequently than any other type of published article (Cronin, Ryan, & Coughlan, 2008; Montori, Wilczynski, Morgan, Haynes, & Hedges, 2003; Patsopoulos, Analatos, & Ioannidis, 2005). The reason for their popularity may be the fact that reading the review enables one to accept an overview, if not a detailed noesis of the surface area in question, too as references to the most useful primary sources (Cronin et al., 2008). Although they are not easy to conduct, the delivery to complete a review article provides a tremendous service to one'southward academic community (Paré et al., 2015; Petticrew & Roberts, 2006). Most, if not all, peer-reviewed journals in the fields of medical informatics publish review articles of some blazon.

The main objectives of this chapter are fourfold: (a) to provide an overview of the major steps and activities involved in conducting a stand-alone literature review; (b) to depict and contrast the different types of review articles that tin can contribute to the eHealth knowledge base; (c) to illustrate each review blazon with one or two examples from the eHealth literature; and (d) to provide a series of recommendations for prospective authors of review manufactures in this domain.

9.2. Overview of the Literature Review Process and Steps

Equally explained in Templier and Paré (2015), there are 6 generic steps involved in conducting a review commodity:

formulating the research question(south) and objective(south),
searching the extant literature,
screening for inclusion,
assessing the quality of principal studies,
extracting data, and
analyzing data.

Although these steps are presented here in sequential lodge, i must go along in listen that the review process can be iterative and that many activities tin can exist initiated during the planning stage and subsequently refined during subsequent phases (Finfgeld-Connett & Johnson, 2013; Kitchenham & Charters, 2007).

Formulating the research question(south) and objective(south): As a first step, members of the review team must appropriately justify the demand for the review itself (Petticrew & Roberts, 2006), identify the review's main objective(south) (Okoli & Schabram, 2010), and define the concepts or variables at the heart of their synthesis (Cooper & Hedges, 2009; Webster & Watson, 2002). Importantly, they besides need to clear the research question(s) they propose to investigate (Kitchenham & Charters, 2007). In this regard, we hold with Jesson, Matheson, and Lacey (2011) that clearly articulated research questions are key ingredients that guide the entire review methodology; they underscore the type of information that is needed, inform the search for and choice of relevant literature, and guide or orient the subsequent assay.

Searching the extant literature: The next stride consists of searching the literature and making decisions about the suitability of textile to be considered in the review (Cooper, 1988). There exist three primary coverage strategies. Starting time, exhaustive coverage means an endeavour is made to be as comprehensive every bit possible in order to ensure that all relevant studies, published and unpublished, are included in the review and, thus, conclusions are based on this spread-out noesis base. The second type of coverage consists of presenting materials that are representative of about other works in a given field or area. Often authors who adopt this strategy will search for relevant articles in a small number of top-tier journals in a field (Paré et al., 2015). In the 3rd strategy, the review team concentrates on prior works that accept been key or pivotal to a particular topic. This may include empirical studies or conceptual papers that initiated a line of investigation, changed how issues or questions were framed, introduced new methods or concepts, or engendered important debate (Cooper, 1988).

Screening for inclusion: The following step consists of evaluating the applicability of the cloth identified in the preceding step (Levy & Ellis, 2006; vom Brocke et al., 2009). Once a group of potential studies has been identified, members of the review squad must screen them to determine their relevance (Petticrew & Roberts, 2006). A set of predetermined rules provides a basis for including or excluding sure studies. This exercise requires a pregnant investment on the part of researchers, who must ensure enhanced objectivity and avoid biases or mistakes. As discussed later on in this chapter, for certain types of reviews there must be at to the lowest degree 2 independent reviewers involved in the screening process and a procedure to resolve disagreements must besides be in place (Liberati et al., 2009; Shea et al., 2009).

Assessing the quality of primary studies: In addition to screening material for inclusion, members of the review team may need to assess the scientific quality of the selected studies, that is, appraise the rigour of the inquiry design and methods. Such formal cess, which is usually conducted independently by at least two coders, helps members of the review squad refine which studies to include in the final sample, determine whether or not the differences in quality may touch on their conclusions, or guide how they analyze the information and translate the findings (Petticrew & Roberts, 2006). Ascribing quality scores to each primary study or because through domain-based evaluations which study components have or take not been designed and executed appropriately makes it possible to reverberate on the extent to which the selected study addresses possible biases and maximizes validity (Shea et al., 2009).

Extracting information: The following step involves gathering or extracting applicative information from each chief report included in the sample and deciding what is relevant to the problem of interest (Cooper & Hedges, 2009). Indeed, the type of data that should exist recorded mainly depends on the initial inquiry questions (Okoli & Schabram, 2010). However, important information may also be gathered near how, when, where and by whom the chief study was conducted, the research design and methods, or qualitative/quantitative results (Cooper & Hedges, 2009).

Analyzing and synthesizing data: Equally a final step, members of the review team must collate, summarize, amass, organize, and compare the prove extracted from the included studies. The extracted data must be presented in a meaningful way that suggests a new contribution to the extant literature (Jesson et al., 2011). Webster and Watson (2002) warn researchers that literature reviews should be much more than lists of papers and should provide a coherent lens to brand sense of extant knowledge on a given topic. In that location exist several methods and techniques for synthesizing quantitative (e.grand., frequency assay, meta-analysis) and qualitative (eastward.g., grounded theory, narrative analysis, meta-ethnography) evidence (Dixon-Woods, Agarwal, Jones, Young, & Sutton, 2005; Thomas & Harden, 2008).

ix.3. Types of Review Articles and Brief Illustrations

EHealth researchers have at their disposal a number of approaches and methods for making sense out of existing literature, all with the purpose of casting current research findings into historical contexts or explaining contradictions that might exist among a set up of primary research studies conducted on a item topic. Our nomenclature scheme is largely inspired from Paré and colleagues' (2015) typology. Below nosotros present and illustrate those review types that we feel are central to the growth and development of the eHealth domain.

ix.3.1. Narrative Reviews

The narrative review is the "traditional" way of reviewing the extant literature and is skewed towards a qualitative estimation of prior cognition (Sylvester et al., 2013). Put simply, a narrative review attempts to summarize or synthesize what has been written on a particular topic but does not seek generalization or cumulative knowledge from what is reviewed (Davies, 2000; Dark-green et al., 2006). Instead, the review team often undertakes the task of accumulating and synthesizing the literature to demonstrate the value of a detail bespeak of view (Baumeister & Leary, 1997). Equally such, reviewers may selectively ignore or limit the attention paid to sure studies in social club to make a point. In this rather unsystematic approach, the selection of information from primary manufactures is subjective, lacks explicit criteria for inclusion and can lead to biased interpretations or inferences (Greenish et al., 2006). There are several narrative reviews in the particular eHealth domain, as in all fields, which follow such an unstructured approach (Silva et al., 2015; Paul et al., 2015).

Despite these criticisms, this type of review can be very useful in gathering together a volume of literature in a specific subject area and synthesizing it. As mentioned in a higher place, its primary purpose is to provide the reader with a comprehensive background for understanding current noesis and highlighting the significance of new research (Cronin et al., 2008). Faculty similar to utilize narrative reviews in the classroom because they are oft more up to engagement than textbooks, provide a single source for students to reference, and betrayal students to peer-reviewed literature (Green et al., 2006). For researchers, narrative reviews can inspire research ideas by identifying gaps or inconsistencies in a torso of noesis, thus helping researchers to make up one's mind research questions or codify hypotheses. Importantly, narrative reviews can besides be used equally educational articles to bring practitioners up to date with certain topics of issues (Green et al., 2006).

Recently, there have been several efforts to introduce more than rigour in narrative reviews that will elucidate common pitfalls and bring changes into their publication standards. Information systems researchers, among others, take contributed to advancing noesis on how to construction a "traditional" review. For instance, Levy and Ellis (2006) proposed a generic framework for conducting such reviews. Their model follows the systematic data processing approach comprised of three steps, namely: (a) literature search and screening; (b) data extraction and analysis; and (c) writing the literature review. They provide detailed and very helpful instructions on how to behave each footstep of the review process. Equally another methodological contribution, vom Brocke et al. (2009) offered a serial of guidelines for conducting literature reviews, with a particular focus on how to search and extract the relevant body of noesis. Final, Bandara, Miskon, and Fielt (2011) proposed a structured, predefined and tool-supported method to identify chief studies within a feasible scope, extract relevant content from identified manufactures, synthesize and analyze the findings, and finer write and nowadays the results of the literature review. We highly recommend that prospective authors of narrative reviews consult these useful sources before embarking on their piece of work.

Darlow and Wen (2015) provide a skilful example of a highly structured narrative review in the eHealth field. These authors synthesized published articles that describe the evolution procedure of mobile health (k-wellness) interventions for patients' cancer care cocky-management. As in most narrative reviews, the scope of the research questions being investigated is wide: (a) how development of these systems are carried out; (b) which methods are used to investigate these systems; and (c) what conclusions tin exist drawn equally a outcome of the development of these systems. To provide clear answers to these questions, a literature search was conducted on 6 electronic databases and Google Scholar. The search was performed using several terms and free text words, combining them in an appropriate fashion. Four inclusion and three exclusion criteria were utilized during the screening procedure. Both authors independently reviewed each of the identified articles to determine eligibility and extract study information. A flow diagram shows the number of studies identified, screened, and included or excluded at each phase of study selection. In terms of contributions, this review provides a serial of applied recommendations for m-health intervention development.

nine.3.ii. Descriptive or Mapping Reviews

The primary goal of a descriptive review is to determine the extent to which a torso of knowledge in a item inquiry topic reveals any interpretable pattern or trend with respect to pre-existing propositions, theories, methodologies or findings (King & He, 2005; Paré et al., 2015). In contrast with narrative reviews, descriptive reviews follow a systematic and transparent process, including searching, screening and classifying studies (Petersen, Vakkalanka, & Kuzniarz, 2015). Indeed, structured search methods are used to form a representative sample of a larger group of published works (Paré et al., 2015). Further, authors of descriptive reviews extract from each written report certain characteristics of interest, such as publication year, research methods, information collection techniques, and direction or strength of enquiry outcomes (eastward.one thousand., positive, negative, or non-pregnant) in the course of frequency analysis to produce quantitative results (Sylvester et al., 2013). In essence, each study included in a descriptive review is treated as the unit of analysis and the published literature as a whole provides a database from which the authors effort to place any interpretable trends or depict overall conclusions about the claim of existing conceptualizations, propositions, methods or findings (Paré et al., 2015). In doing so, a descriptive review may claim that its findings represent the country of the fine art in a item domain (King & He, 2005).

In the fields of health sciences and medical informatics, reviews that focus on examining the range, nature and evolution of a topic area are described by Anderson, Allen, Peckham, and Goodwin (2008) equally mapping reviews. Like descriptive reviews, the research questions are generic and usually chronicle to publication patterns and trends. In that location is no preconceived plan to systematically review all of the literature although this can be washed. Instead, researchers often present studies that are representative of virtually works published in a particular area and they consider a specific time frame to be mapped.

An example of this approach in the eHealth domain is offered by DeShazo, Lavallie, and Wolf (2009). The purpose of this descriptive or mapping review was to characterize publication trends in the medical information science literature over a 20-yr period (1987 to 2006). To achieve this aggressive objective, the authors performed a bibliometric analysis of medical informatics citations indexed in medline using publication trends, journal frequencies, bear upon factors, Medical Field of study Headings (MeSH) term frequencies, and characteristics of citations. Findings revealed that there were over 77,000 medical computer science articles published during the covered period in numerous journals and that the average annual growth rate was 12%. The MeSH term assay too suggested a strong interdisciplinary trend. Finally, boilerplate impact scores increased over fourth dimension with two notable growth periods. Overall, patterns in research outputs that seem to characterize the historic trends and current components of the field of medical informatics suggest it may be a maturing subject field (DeShazo et al., 2009).

ix.3.3. Scoping Reviews

Scoping reviews attempt to provide an initial indication of the potential size and nature of the extant literature on an emergent topic (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005; Daudt, van Mossel, & Scott, 2013; Levac, Colquhoun, & O'Brien, 2010). A scoping review may be conducted to examine the extent, range and nature of research activities in a particular area, determine the value of undertaking a full systematic review (discussed next), or identify enquiry gaps in the extant literature (Paré et al., 2015). In line with their primary objective, scoping reviews usually conclude with the presentation of a detailed inquiry agenda for time to come works along with potential implications for both practise and research.

Different narrative and descriptive reviews, the whole bespeak of scoping the field is to exist as comprehensive as possible, including grey literature (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005). Inclusion and exclusion criteria must exist established to help researchers eliminate studies that are non aligned with the research questions. Information technology is also recommended that at least 2 independent coders review abstracts yielded from the search strategy so the total articles for study choice (Daudt et al., 2013). The synthesized prove from content or thematic assay is relatively piece of cake to present in tabular form (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005; Thomas & Harden, 2008).

1 of the well-nigh highly cited scoping reviews in the eHealth domain was published past Archer, Fevrier-Thomas, Lokker, McKibbon, and Straus (2011). These authors reviewed the existing literature on personal health record (phr) systems including design, functionality, implementation, applications, outcomes, and benefits. 7 databases were searched from 1985 to March 2010. Several search terms relating to phrs were used during this process. Ii authors independently screened titles and abstracts to make up one's mind inclusion condition. A second screen of full-text articles, once more by 2 contained members of the research team, ensured that the studies described phrsouthward. All in all, 130 manufactures met the criteria and their data were extracted manually into a database. The authors concluded that although there is a big amount of survey, observational, cohort/panel, and anecdotal show of phr benefits and satisfaction for patients, more enquiry is needed to evaluate the results of phr implementations. Their in-depth analysis of the literature signalled that there is niggling solid testify from randomized controlled trials or other studies through the utilise of phrs. Hence, they suggested that more research is needed that addresses the current lack of understanding of optimal functionality and usability of these systems, and how they tin play a beneficial role in supporting patient self-direction (Archer et al., 2011).

ix.three.four. Forms of Aggregative Reviews

Healthcare providers, practitioners, and policy-makers are nowadays overwhelmed with large volumes of data, including research-based evidence from numerous clinical trials and evaluation studies, assessing the effectiveness of health information technologies and interventions (Ammenwerth & de Keizer, 2004; Deshazo et al., 2009). It is unrealistic to look that all these disparate actors will have the time, skills, and necessary resource to identify the bachelor evidence in the area of their expertise and consider it when making decisions. Systematic reviews that involve the rigorous application of scientific strategies aimed at limiting subjectivity and bias (i.due east., systematic and random errors) can respond to this challenge.

Systematic reviews attempt to aggregate, appraise, and synthesize in a single source all empirical evidence that meet a set of previously specified eligibility criteria in order to answer a clearly formulated and often narrow research question on a item topic of interest to support show-based practice (Liberati et al., 2009). They adhere closely to explicit scientific principles (Liberati et al., 2009) and rigorous methodological guidelines (Higgins & Dark-green, 2008) aimed at reducing random and systematic errors that can atomic number 82 to deviations from the truth in results or inferences. The use of explicit methods allows systematic reviews to amass a big body of inquiry evidence, assess whether effects or relationships are in the aforementioned management and of the aforementioned full general magnitude, explain possible inconsistencies between written report results, and determine the strength of the overall evidence for every outcome of involvement based on the quality of included studies and the general consistency among them (Melt, Mulrow, & Haynes, 1997). The main procedures of a systematic review involve:

Formulating a review question and developing a search strategy based on explicit inclusion criteria for the identification of eligible studies (usually described in the context of a detailed review protocol).
Searching for eligible studies using multiple databases and information sources, including grayness literature sources, without any linguistic communication restrictions.
Selecting studies, extracting information, and assessing risk of bias in a duplicate manner using two contained reviewers to avoid random or systematic errors in the procedure.
Analyzing data using quantitative or qualitative methods.
Presenting results in summary of findings tables.
Interpreting results and cartoon conclusions.

Many systematic reviews, just not all, use statistical methods to combine the results of independent studies into a single quantitative estimate or summary effect size. Known equally meta-analyses, these reviews use specific information extraction and statistical techniques (e.g., network, frequentist, or Bayesian meta-analyses) to calculate from each study by upshot of involvement an effect size along with a conviction interval that reflects the caste of uncertainty backside the point estimate of effect (Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009; Deeks, Higgins, & Altman, 2008). Subsequently, they apply fixed or random-effects assay models to combine the results of the included studies, assess statistical heterogeneity, and calculate a weighted boilerplate of the consequence estimates from the different studies, taking into account their sample sizes. The summary outcome size is a value that reflects the average magnitude of the intervention effect for a particular outcome of interest or, more generally, the strength of a relationship between two variables beyond all studies included in the systematic review. By statistically combining data from multiple studies, meta-analyses tin can create more precise and reliable estimates of intervention effects than those derived from individual studies alone, when these are examined independently as discrete sources of information.

The review by Gurol-Urganci, de Jongh, Vodopivec-Jamsek, Atun, and Car (2013) on the effects of mobile telephone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments is an illustrative example of a high-quality systematic review with meta-analysis. Missed appointments are a major cause of inefficiency in healthcare delivery with substantial monetary costs to health systems. These authors sought to assess whether mobile phone-based appointment reminders delivered through Short Message Service (sms) or Multimedia Messaging Service (mms) are effective in improving rates of patient omnipresence and reducing overall costs. To this end, they conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases using highly sensitive search strategies without language or publication-type restrictions to identify all rcts that are eligible for inclusion. In order to minimize the risk of omitting eligible studies not captured by the original search, they supplemented all electronic searches with manual screening of trial registers and references independent in the included studies. Study option, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments were performed independently by two coders using standardized methods to ensure consistency and to eliminate potential errors. Findings from eight rcts involving 6,615 participants were pooled into meta-analyses to summate the magnitude of effects that mobile text message reminders have on the rate of attendance at healthcare appointments compared to no reminders and phone telephone call reminders.

Meta-analyses are regarded as powerful tools for deriving meaningful conclusions. However, there are situations in which it is neither reasonable nor appropriate to pool studies together using meta-analytic methods simply because at that place is extensive clinical heterogeneity between the included studies or variation in measurement tools, comparisons, or outcomes of interest. In these cases, systematic reviews can apply qualitative synthesis methods such as vote counting, content analysis, classification schemes and tabulations, as an alternative approach to narratively synthesize the results of the independent studies included in the review. This course of review is known equally qualitative systematic review.

A rigorous example of one such review in the eHealth domain is presented by Mickan, Atherton, Roberts, Heneghan, and Tilson (2014) on the employ of handheld computers by healthcare professionals and their impact on access to information and clinical decision-making. In line with the methodological guidelines for systematic reviews, these authors: (a) developed and registered with prospero (world wide web.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/) an a priori review protocol; (b) conducted comprehensive searches for eligible studies using multiple databases and other supplementary strategies (e.g., forward searches); and (c) afterwards carried out study choice, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments in a duplicate manner to eliminate potential errors in the review process. Heterogeneity between the included studies in terms of reported outcomes and measures precluded the apply of meta-analytic methods. To this cease, the authors resorted to using narrative analysis and synthesis to depict the effectiveness of handheld computers on accessing data for clinical knowledge, adherence to safety and clinical quality guidelines, and diagnostic decision-making.

In recent years, the number of systematic reviews in the field of wellness information science has increased considerably. Systematic reviews with discordant findings can crusade great confusion and make it difficult for decision-makers to interpret the review-level evidence (Moher, 2013). Therefore, there is a growing need for appraisement and synthesis of prior systematic reviews to ensure that determination-making is constantly informed by the best available accumulated bear witness. Umbrella reviews, likewise known as overviews of systematic reviews, are tertiary types of bear witness synthesis that aim to accomplish this; that is, they aim to compare and dissimilarity findings from multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses (Becker & Oxman, 2008). Umbrella reviews generally adhere to the same principles and rigorous methodological guidelines used in systematic reviews. Withal, the unit of analysis in umbrella reviews is the systematic review rather than the main report (Becker & Oxman, 2008). Unlike systematic reviews that accept a narrow focus of inquiry, umbrella reviews focus on broader enquiry topics for which at that place are several potential interventions (Smith, Devane, Begley, & Clarke, 2011). A contempo umbrella review on the furnishings of home telemonitoring interventions for patients with heart failure critically appraised, compared, and synthesized show from 15 systematic reviews to investigate which types of dwelling telemonitoring technologies and forms of interventions are more effective in reducing mortality and infirmary admissions (Kitsiou, Paré, & Jaana, 2015).

nine.3.5. Realist Reviews

Realist reviews are theory-driven interpretative reviews adult to inform, enhance, or supplement conventional systematic reviews by making sense of heterogeneous testify virtually complex interventions applied in various contexts in a style that informs policy controlling (Greenhalgh, Wong, Westhorp, & Pawson, 2011). They originated from criticisms of positivist systematic reviews which centre on their "simplistic" underlying assumptions (Oates, 2011). As explained above, systematic reviews seek to identify causation. Such logic is appropriate for fields like medicine and education where findings of randomized controlled trials can be aggregated to run into whether a new handling or intervention does better outcomes. However, many contend that it is not possible to found such direct causal links between interventions and outcomes in fields such equally social policy, management, and information systems where for any intervention there is unlikely to be a regular or consistent effect (Oates, 2011; Pawson, 2006; Rousseau, Manning, & Denyer, 2008).

To circumvent these limitations, Pawson, Greenhalgh, Harvey, and Walshe (2005) accept proposed a new arroyo for synthesizing knowledge that seeks to unpack the mechanism of how "circuitous interventions" piece of work in particular contexts. The basic research question — what works? — which is usually associated with systematic reviews changes to: what is information technology about this intervention that works, for whom, in what circumstances, in what respects and why? Realist reviews accept no detail preference for either quantitative or qualitative testify. As a theory-building approach, a realist review normally starts by articulating likely underlying mechanisms and then scrutinizes available evidence to find out whether and where these mechanisms are applicative (Shepperd et al., 2009). Principal studies institute in the extant literature are viewed every bit case studies which can test and modify the initial theories (Rousseau et al., 2008).

The principal objective pursued in the realist review conducted past Otte-Trojel, de Bont, Rundall, and van de Klundert (2014) was to examine how patient portals contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The specific goals were to investigate how outcomes are produced and, near chiefly, how variations in outcomes tin exist explained. The research squad started with an exploratory review of background documents and inquiry studies to identify ways in which patient portals may contribute to wellness service delivery and patient outcomes. The authors identified half dozen master means which represent "educated guesses" to be tested confronting the data in the evaluation studies. These studies were identified through a formal and systematic search in four databases between 2003 and 2013. Ii members of the research team selected the articles using a pre-established list of inclusion and exclusion criteria and following a two-footstep procedure. The authors so extracted information from the selected manufactures and created several tables, one for each outcome category. They organized information to bring forrard those mechanisms where patient portals contribute to outcomes and the variation in outcomes across different contexts.

9.3.6. Critical Reviews

Lastly, critical reviews aim to provide a critical evaluation and interpretive analysis of existing literature on a particular topic of involvement to reveal strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, controversies, inconsistencies, and/or other important problems with respect to theories, hypotheses, research methods or results (Baumeister & Leary, 1997; Kirkevold, 1997). Unlike other review types, critical reviews attempt to take a reflective business relationship of the research that has been done in a particular expanse of interest, and assess its credibility by using appraisement instruments or critical interpretive methods. In this way, critical reviews attempt to constructively inform other scholars nigh the weaknesses of prior enquiry and strengthen knowledge development by giving focus and direction to studies for further improvement (Kirkevold, 1997).

Kitsiou, Paré, and Jaana (2013) provide an example of a critical review that assessed the methodological quality of prior systematic reviews of home telemonitoring studies for chronic patients. The authors conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases to place eligible reviews and subsequently used a validated instrument to conduct an in-depth quality appraisement. Results indicate that the majority of systematic reviews in this detail area suffer from important methodological flaws and biases that impair their internal validity and limit their usefulness for clinical and decision-making purposes. To this end, they provide a number of recommendations to strengthen knowledge development towards improving the design and execution of futurity reviews on domicile telemonitoring.

9.four. Summary

Table 9.1 outlines the main types of literature reviews that were described in the previous sub-sections and summarizes the main characteristics that distinguish i review type from another. It too includes key references to methodological guidelines and useful sources that can exist used by eHealth scholars and researchers for planning and developing reviews.

Tabular array 9.ane

Typology of Literature Reviews (adapted from Paré et al., 2015).

As shown in Table 9.one, each review type addresses different kinds of enquiry questions or objectives, which subsequently ascertain and dictate the methods and approaches that need to be used to achieve the overarching goal(s) of the review. For case, in the case of narrative reviews, at that place is greater flexibility in searching and synthesizing articles (Light-green et al., 2006). Researchers are often relatively free to employ a diversity of approaches to search, identify, and select relevant scientific manufactures, describe their operational characteristics, present how the private studies fit together, and formulate conclusions. On the other hand, systematic reviews are characterized by their high level of systematicity, rigour, and use of explicit methods, based on an "a priori" review plan that aims to minimize bias in the analysis and synthesis process (Higgins & Greenish, 2008). Some reviews are exploratory in nature (e.1000., scoping/mapping reviews), whereas others may exist conducted to observe patterns (e.g., descriptive reviews) or involve a synthesis approach that may include the critical analysis of prior research (Paré et al., 2015). Hence, in guild to select the nearly appropriate type of review, it is critical to know earlier embarking on a review project, why the inquiry synthesis is conducted and what type of methods are best aligned with the pursued goals.

nine.five. Final Remarks

In light of the increased use of testify-based do and research generating stronger testify (Grady et al., 2011; Lyden et al., 2013), review articles have become essential tools for summarizing, synthesizing, integrating or critically appraising prior cognition in the eHealth field. As mentioned earlier, when rigorously conducted review articles stand for powerful information sources for eHealth scholars and practitioners looking for state-of-the-art bear witness. The typology of literature reviews we used herein volition allow eHealth researchers, graduate students and practitioners to gain a improve agreement of the similarities and differences between review types.

We must stress that this classification scheme does not privilege any specific blazon of review as being of higher quality than another (Paré et al., 2015). Every bit explained above, each type of review has its ain strengths and limitations. Having said that, nosotros realize that the methodological rigour of any review — be it qualitative, quantitative or mixed — is a critical aspect that should exist considered seriously by prospective authors. In the present context, the notion of rigour refers to the reliability and validity of the review process described in section 9.2. For one thing, reliability is related to the reproducibility of the review procedure and steps, which is facilitated past a comprehensive documentation of the literature search process, extraction, coding and analysis performed in the review. Whether the search is comprehensive or non, whether it involves a methodical approach for data extraction and synthesis or not, it is of import that the review documents in an explicit and transparent manner the steps and arroyo that were used in the process of its development. Next, validity characterizes the degree to which the review process was conducted accordingly. It goes beyond documentation and reflects decisions related to the selection of the sources, the search terms used, the period of fourth dimension covered, the articles selected in the search, and the application of backward and forward searches (vom Brocke et al., 2009). In short, the rigour of any review commodity is reflected by the explicitness of its methods (i.e., transparency) and the soundness of the arroyo used. We refer those interested in the concepts of rigour and quality to the work of Templier and Paré (2015) which offers a detailed set of methodological guidelines for conducting and evaluating diverse types of review manufactures.

To conclude, our main objective in this affiliate was to demystify the diverse types of literature reviews that are central to the continuous evolution of the eHealth field. It is our hope that our descriptive account will serve equally a valuable source for those conducting, evaluating or using reviews in this important and growing domain.

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