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Debora f.b. leite.
I Departamento de Ginecologia e Obstetricia, Faculdade de Ciencias Medicas, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, BR
II Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Pernambuco, PE, BR
III Hospital das Clinicas, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Pernambuco, PE, BR
Jose g. cecatti.
A sophisticated literature review (LR) can result in a robust dissertation/thesis by scrutinizing the main problem examined by the academic study; anticipating research hypotheses, methods and results; and maintaining the interest of the audience in how the dissertation/thesis will provide solutions for the current gaps in a particular field. Unfortunately, little guidance is available on elaborating LRs, and writing an LR chapter is not a linear process. An LR translates students’ abilities in information literacy, the language domain, and critical writing. Students in postgraduate programs should be systematically trained in these skills. Therefore, this paper discusses the purposes of LRs in dissertations and theses. Second, the paper considers five steps for developing a review: defining the main topic, searching the literature, analyzing the results, writing the review and reflecting on the writing. Ultimately, this study proposes a twelve-item LR checklist. By clearly stating the desired achievements, this checklist allows Masters and Ph.D. students to continuously assess their own progress in elaborating an LR. Institutions aiming to strengthen students’ necessary skills in critical academic writing should also use this tool.
Writing the literature review (LR) is often viewed as a difficult task that can be a point of writer’s block and procrastination ( 1 ) in postgraduate life. Disagreements on the definitions or classifications of LRs ( 2 ) may confuse students about their purpose and scope, as well as how to perform an LR. Interestingly, at many universities, the LR is still an important element in any academic work, despite the more recent trend of producing scientific articles rather than classical theses.
The LR is not an isolated section of the thesis/dissertation or a copy of the background section of a research proposal. It identifies the state-of-the-art knowledge in a particular field, clarifies information that is already known, elucidates implications of the problem being analyzed, links theory and practice ( 3 - 5 ), highlights gaps in the current literature, and places the dissertation/thesis within the research agenda of that field. Additionally, by writing the LR, postgraduate students will comprehend the structure of the subject and elaborate on their cognitive connections ( 3 ) while analyzing and synthesizing data with increasing maturity.
At the same time, the LR transforms the student and hints at the contents of other chapters for the reader. First, the LR explains the research question; second, it supports the hypothesis, objectives, and methods of the research project; and finally, it facilitates a description of the student’s interpretation of the results and his/her conclusions. For scholars, the LR is an introductory chapter ( 6 ). If it is well written, it demonstrates the student’s understanding of and maturity in a particular topic. A sound and sophisticated LR can indicate a robust dissertation/thesis.
A consensus on the best method to elaborate a dissertation/thesis has not been achieved. The LR can be a distinct chapter or included in different sections; it can be part of the introduction chapter, part of each research topic, or part of each published paper ( 7 ). However, scholars view the LR as an integral part of the main body of an academic work because it is intrinsically connected to other sections ( Figure 1 ) and is frequently present. The structure of the LR depends on the conventions of a particular discipline, the rules of the department, and the student’s and supervisor’s areas of expertise, needs and interests.
Interestingly, many postgraduate students choose to submit their LR to peer-reviewed journals. As LRs are critical evaluations of current knowledge, they are indeed publishable material, even in the form of narrative or systematic reviews. However, systematic reviews have specific patterns 1 ( 8 ) that may not entirely fit with the questions posed in the dissertation/thesis. Additionally, the scope of a systematic review may be too narrow, and the strict criteria for study inclusion may omit important information from the dissertation/thesis. Therefore, this essay discusses the definition of an LR is and methods to develop an LR in the context of an academic dissertation/thesis. Finally, we suggest a checklist to evaluate an LR.
Conducting research and writing a dissertation/thesis translates rational thinking and enthusiasm ( 9 ). While a strong body of literature that instructs students on research methodology, data analysis and writing scientific papers exists, little guidance on performing LRs is available. The LR is a unique opportunity to assess and contrast various arguments and theories, not just summarize them. The research results should not be discussed within the LR, but the postgraduate student tends to write a comprehensive LR while reflecting on his or her own findings ( 10 ).
Many people believe that writing an LR is a lonely and linear process. Supervisors or the institutions assume that the Ph.D. student has mastered the relevant techniques and vocabulary associated with his/her subject and conducts a self-reflection about previously published findings. Indeed, while elaborating the LR, the student should aggregate diverse skills, which mainly rely on his/her own commitment to mastering them. Thus, less supervision should be required ( 11 ). However, the parameters described above might not currently be the case for many students ( 11 , 12 ), and the lack of formal and systematic training on writing LRs is an important concern ( 11 ).
An institutional environment devoted to active learning will provide students the opportunity to continuously reflect on LRs, which will form a dialogue between the postgraduate student and the current literature in a particular field ( 13 ). Postgraduate students will be interpreting studies by other researchers, and, according to Hart (1998) ( 3 ), the outcomes of the LR in a dissertation/thesis include the following:
A sound LR translates the postgraduate student’s expertise in academic and scientific writing: it expresses his/her level of comfort with synthesizing ideas ( 11 ). The LR reveals how well the postgraduate student has proceeded in three domains: an effective literature search, the language domain, and critical writing.
All students should be trained in gathering appropriate data for specific purposes, and information literacy skills are a cornerstone. These skills are defined as “an individual’s ability to know when they need information, to identify information that can help them address the issue or problem at hand, and to locate, evaluate, and use that information effectively” ( 14 ). Librarian support is of vital importance in coaching the appropriate use of Boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT) and other tools for highly efficient literature searches (e.g., quotation marks and truncation), as is the appropriate management of electronic databases.
Academic writing must be concise and precise: unnecessary words distract the reader from the essential content ( 15 ). In this context, reading about issues distant from the research topic ( 16 ) may increase students’ general vocabulary and familiarity with grammar. Ultimately, reading diverse materials facilitates and encourages the writing process itself.
Critical judgment includes critical reading, thinking and writing. It supposes a student’s analytical reflection about what he/she has read. The student should delineate the basic elements of the topic, characterize the most relevant claims, identify relationships, and finally contrast those relationships ( 17 ). Each scientific document highlights the perspective of the author, and students will become more confident in judging the supporting evidence and underlying premises of a study and constructing their own counterargument as they read more articles. A paucity of integration or contradictory perspectives indicates lower levels of cognitive complexity ( 12 ).
Thus, while elaborating an LR, the postgraduate student should achieve the highest category of Bloom’s cognitive skills: evaluation ( 12 ). The writer should not only summarize data and understand each topic but also be able to make judgments based on objective criteria, compare resources and findings, identify discrepancies due to methodology, and construct his/her own argument ( 12 ). As a result, the student will be sufficiently confident to show his/her own voice .
Writing a consistent LR is an intense and complex activity that reveals the training and long-lasting academic skills of a writer. It is not a lonely or linear process. However, students are unlikely to be prepared to write an LR if they have not mastered the aforementioned domains ( 10 ). An institutional environment that supports student learning is crucial.
Different institutions employ distinct methods to promote students’ learning processes. First, many universities propose modules to develop behind the scenes activities that enhance self-reflection about general skills (e.g., the skills we have mastered and the skills we need to develop further), behaviors that should be incorporated (e.g., self-criticism about one’s own thoughts), and each student’s role in the advancement of his/her field. Lectures or workshops about LRs themselves are useful because they describe the purposes of the LR and how it fits into the whole picture of a student’s work. These activities may explain what type of discussion an LR must involve, the importance of defining the correct scope, the reasons to include a particular resource, and the main role of critical reading.
Some pedagogic services that promote a continuous improvement in study and academic skills are equally important. Examples include workshops about time management, the accomplishment of personal objectives, active learning, and foreign languages for nonnative speakers. Additionally, opportunities to converse with other students promotes an awareness of others’ experiences and difficulties. Ultimately, the supervisor’s role in providing feedback and setting deadlines is crucial in developing students’ abilities and in strengthening students’ writing quality ( 12 ).
A consensus on the appropriate method for elaborating an LR is not available, but four main steps are generally accepted: defining the main topic, searching the literature, analyzing the results, and writing ( 6 ). We suggest a fifth step: reflecting on the information that has been written in previous publications ( Figure 2 ).
Planning an LR is directly linked to the research main question of the thesis and occurs in parallel to students’ training in the three domains discussed above. The planning stage helps organize ideas, delimit the scope of the LR ( 11 ), and avoid the wasting of time in the process. Planning includes the following steps:
The ability to gather adequate information from the literature must be addressed in postgraduate programs. Librarian support is important, particularly for accessing difficult texts. This step comprises the following components:
In addition, two other approaches are suggested. First, a review of the reference list of each document might be useful for identifying relevant publications to be included and important opinions to be assessed. This step is also relevant for referencing the original studies and leading authors in that field. Moreover, students can directly contact the experts on a particular topic to consult with them regarding their experience or use them as a source of additional unpublished documents.
Before submitting a dissertation/thesis, the electronic search strategy should be repeated. This process will ensure that the most recently published papers will be considered in the LR.
This task is an important exercise in time management. First, students should read the title and abstract to understand whether that document suits their purposes, addresses the research question, and helps develop the topic of interest. Then, they should scan the full text, determine how it is structured, group it with similar documents, and verify whether other arguments might be considered ( 5 ).
Critical reading and thinking skills are important in this step. This step consists of the following components:
The recognition of when a student is able and ready to write after a sufficient period of reading and thinking is likely a difficult task. Some students can produce a review in a single long work session. However, as discussed above, writing is not a linear process, and students do not need to write LRs according to a specific sequence of sections. Writing an LR is a time-consuming task, and some scholars believe that a period of at least six months is sufficient ( 6 ). An LR, and academic writing in general, expresses the writer’s proper thoughts, conclusions about others’ work ( 6 , 10 , 13 , 16 ), and decisions about methods to progress in the chosen field of knowledge. Thus, each student is expected to present a different learning and writing trajectory.
In this step, writing methods should be considered; then, editing, citing and correct referencing should complete this stage, at least temporarily. Freewriting techniques may be a good starting point for brainstorming ideas and improving the understanding of the information that has been read ( 1 ). Students should consider the following parameters when creating an agenda for writing the LR: two-hour writing blocks (at minimum), with prespecified tasks that are possible to complete in one section; short (minutes) and long breaks (days or weeks) to allow sufficient time for mental rest and reflection; and short- and long-term goals to motivate the writing itself ( 20 ). With increasing experience, this scheme can vary widely, and it is not a straightforward rule. Importantly, each discipline has a different way of writing ( 1 ), and each department has its own preferred styles for citations and references.
In this step, the postgraduate student should ask him/herself the same questions as in the analyzing the results step, which can take more time than anticipated. Ambiguities, repeated ideas, and a lack of coherence may not be noted when the student is immersed in the writing task for long periods. The whole effort will likely be a work in progress, and continuous refinements in the written material will occur once the writing process has begun.
In contrast to review papers, the LR of a dissertation/thesis should not be a standalone piece or work. Instead, it should present the student as a scholar and should maintain the interest of the audience in how that dissertation/thesis will provide solutions for the current gaps in a particular field.
A checklist for evaluating an LR is convenient for students’ continuous academic development and research transparency: it clearly states the desired achievements for the LR of a dissertation/thesis. Here, we present an LR checklist developed from an LR scoring rubric ( 11 ). For a critical analysis of an LR, we maintain the five categories but offer twelve criteria that are not scaled ( Figure 3 ). The criteria all have the same importance and are not mutually exclusive.
1. justified criteria exist for the inclusion and exclusion of literature in the review.
This criterion builds on the main topic and areas covered by the LR ( 18 ). While experts may be confident in retrieving and selecting literature, postgraduate students must convince their audience about the adequacy of their search strategy and their reasons for intentionally selecting what material to cover ( 11 ). References from different fields of knowledge provide distinct perspective, but narrowing the scope of coverage may be important in areas with a large body of existing knowledge.
2. a critical examination of the state of the field exists.
A critical examination is an assessment of distinct aspects in the field ( 1 ) along with a constructive argument. It is not a negative critique but an expression of the student’s understanding of how other scholars have added to the topic ( 1 ), and the student should analyze and contextualize contradictory statements. A writer’s personal bias (beliefs or political involvement) have been shown to influence the structure and writing of a document; therefore, the cultural and paradigmatic background guide how the theories are revised and presented ( 13 ). However, an honest judgment is important when considering different perspectives.
The broader scholarly literature should be related to the chosen main topic for the LR ( how to develop the literature review section). The LR can cover the literature from one or more disciplines, depending on its scope, but it should always offer a new perspective. In addition, students should be careful in citing and referencing previous publications. As a rule, original studies and primary references should generally be included. Systematic and narrative reviews present summarized data, and it may be important to cite them, particularly for issues that should be understood but do not require a detailed description. Similarly, quotations highlight the exact statement from another publication. However, excessive referencing may disclose lower levels of analysis and synthesis by the student.
Situating the LR in its historical context shows the level of comfort of the student in addressing a particular topic. Instead of only presenting statements and theories in a temporal approach, which occasionally follows a linear timeline, the LR should authentically characterize the student’s academic work in the state-of-art techniques in their particular field of knowledge. Thus, the LR should reinforce why the dissertation/thesis represents original work in the chosen research field.
Distinct theories on the same topic may exist in different disciplines, and one discipline may consider multiple concepts to explain one topic. These misunderstandings should be addressed and contemplated. The LR should not synthesize all theories or concepts at the same time. Although this approach might demonstrate in-depth reading on a particular topic, it can reveal a student’s inability to comprehend and synthesize his/her research problem.
The LR is a unique opportunity to articulate ideas and arguments and to purpose new relationships between them ( 10 , 11 ). More importantly, a sound LR will outline to the audience how these important variables and phenomena will be addressed in the current academic work. Indeed, the LR should build a bidirectional link with the remaining sections and ground the connections between all of the sections ( Figure 1 ).
The LR is a ‘creative inquiry’ ( 13 ) in which the student elaborates his/her own discourse, builds on previous knowledge in the field, and describes his/her own perspective while interpreting others’ work ( 13 , 17 ). Thus, students should articulate the current knowledge, not accept the results at face value ( 11 , 13 , 17 ), and improve their own cognitive abilities ( 12 ).
8. the main methodologies and research techniques that have been used in the field are identified and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed.
The LR is expected to distinguish the research that has been completed from investigations that remain to be performed, address the benefits and limitations of the main methods applied to date, and consider the strategies for addressing the expected limitations described above. While placing his/her research within the methodological context of a particular topic, the LR will justify the methodology of the study and substantiate the student’s interpretations.
The audience expects the writer to analyze and synthesize methodological approaches in the field. The findings should be explained according to the strengths and limitations of previous research methods, and students must avoid interpretations that are not supported by the analyzed literature. This criterion translates to the student’s comprehension of the applicability and types of answers provided by different research methodologies, even those using a quantitative or qualitative research approach.
10. the scholarly significance of the research problem is rationalized.
The LR is an introductory section of a dissertation/thesis and will present the postgraduate student as a scholar in a particular field ( 11 ). Therefore, the LR should discuss how the research problem is currently addressed in the discipline being investigated or in different disciplines, depending on the scope of the LR. The LR explains the academic paradigms in the topic of interest ( 13 ) and methods to advance the field from these starting points. However, an excess number of personal citations—whether referencing the student’s research or studies by his/her research team—may reflect a narrow literature search and a lack of comprehensive synthesis of ideas and arguments.
The practical significance indicates a student’s comprehensive understanding of research terminology (e.g., risk versus associated factor), methodology (e.g., efficacy versus effectiveness) and plausible interpretations in the context of the field. Notably, the academic argument about a topic may not always reflect the debate in real life terms. For example, using a quantitative approach in epidemiology, statistically significant differences between groups do not explain all of the factors involved in a particular problem ( 21 ). Therefore, excessive faith in p -values may reflect lower levels of critical evaluation of the context and implications of a research problem by the student.
12. the lr was written with a coherent, clear structure that supported the review.
This category strictly relates to the language domain: the text should be coherent and presented in a logical sequence, regardless of which organizational ( 18 ) approach is chosen. The beginning of each section/subsection should state what themes will be addressed, paragraphs should be carefully linked to each other ( 10 ), and the first sentence of each paragraph should generally summarize the content. Additionally, the student’s statements are clear, sound, and linked to other scholars’ works, and precise and concise language that follows standardized writing conventions (e.g., in terms of active/passive voice and verb tenses) is used. Attention to grammar, such as orthography and punctuation, indicates prudence and supports a robust dissertation/thesis. Ultimately, all of these strategies provide fluency and consistency for the text.
Although the scoring rubric was initially proposed for postgraduate programs in education research, we are convinced that this checklist is a valuable tool for all academic areas. It enables the monitoring of students’ learning curves and a concentrated effort on any criteria that are not yet achieved. For institutions, the checklist is a guide to support supervisors’ feedback, improve students’ writing skills, and highlight the learning goals of each program. These criteria do not form a linear sequence, but ideally, all twelve achievements should be perceived in the LR.
A single correct method to classify, evaluate and guide the elaboration of an LR has not been established. In this essay, we have suggested directions for planning, structuring and critically evaluating an LR. The planning of the scope of an LR and approaches to complete it is a valuable effort, and the five steps represent a rational starting point. An institutional environment devoted to active learning will support students in continuously reflecting on LRs, which will form a dialogue between the writer and the current literature in a particular field ( 13 ).
The completion of an LR is a challenging and necessary process for understanding one’s own field of expertise. Knowledge is always transitory, but our responsibility as scholars is to provide a critical contribution to our field, allowing others to think through our work. Good researchers are grounded in sophisticated LRs, which reveal a writer’s training and long-lasting academic skills. We recommend using the LR checklist as a tool for strengthening the skills necessary for critical academic writing.
Leite DFB has initially conceived the idea and has written the first draft of this review. Padilha MAS and Cecatti JG have supervised data interpretation and critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors have read the draft and agreed with this submission. Authors are responsible for all aspects of this academic piece.
We are grateful to all of the professors of the ‘Getting Started with Graduate Research and Generic Skills’ module at University College Cork, Cork, Ireland, for suggesting and supporting this article. Funding: DFBL has granted scholarship from Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES) to take part of her Ph.D. studies in Ireland (process number 88881.134512/2016-01). There is no participation from sponsors on authors’ decision to write or to submit this manuscript.
No potential conflict of interest was reported.
1 The questions posed in systematic reviews usually follow the ‘PICOS’ acronym: Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes, Study design.
2 In 1988, Cooper proposed a taxonomy that aims to facilitate students’ and institutions’ understanding of literature reviews. Six characteristics with specific categories are briefly described: Focus: research outcomes, research methodologies, theories, or practices and applications; Goals: integration (generalization, conflict resolution, and linguistic bridge-building), criticism, or identification of central issues; Perspective: neutral representation or espousal of a position; Coverage: exhaustive, exhaustive with selective citations, representative, central or pivotal; Organization: historical, conceptual, or methodological; and Audience: specialized scholars, general scholars, practitioners or policymakers, or the general public.
What is a literature review.
The literature of a literature review is not made up of novels and short stories and poetry—but is the collection of writing and research that has been produced on a particular topic.
The purpose of the literature review is to give you an overview of a particular topic. Your job is to discover the research that has been done, the major perspectives, and the significant thinkers and writers (experts) who have published on the topic you’re interested in. In other words, it’s a survey of what has been written and argued about your topic.
By the time you complete your literature review you should have written an essay that demonstrates that you:
Thus, a literature review synthesizes your research into an explanation of what is known and what is not known on your topic. If the topic is one from which you want to embark on a major research project, doing a literature review will save you time and help you figure out where you might focus your attention so you don’t duplicate research that has already been done.
Just to be clear: a literature review differs from a research paper in that a literature review is a summary and synthesis of the major arguments and thinking of experts on the topic you’re investigating, whereas a research paper supports a position or an opinion you have developed yourself as a result of your own analysis of a topic.
Another advantage of doing a literature review is that it summarizes the intellectual discussion that has been going on over the decades—or centuries—on a specific topic and allows you to join in that conversation (what academics call academic discourse) from a knowledgeable position.
The following presentation will provide you with the basic steps to follow as you work to complete a literature review.
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Speaker 1: In this video on writing the literature review, we're going to look at what a literature review is, we'll look at some of the language you can use to write your literature review, and we'll look at some example text. In the video, I'm going to ask you to do some reading and do some considering of examples, so at times I'll ask you to pause the video to think about some questions or do some reading, and to reflect on some of the issues around writing the literature review. First, some questions. What is a literature review? What is the purpose of a literature review? And what does one consist of? Stop the video now, write some notes in answer to those questions, and reflect on some of the answers as we go through some of the ideas in this video. First of all, defining a literature review. Pause the video and read this definition from Ridley. There are three key things I want you to take from this definition. One, there's extensive reference to related research in your field. Two, connections are made between those source texts that you draw on. And three, you position yourself in relation to those works that you read. So, the literature review starts with the reading, and the person who needs to evaluate the sources is you. How do you do this? One way is to consider the authorship. Who authored the research? Are we talking about someone who's expert? Is it relevant? Is it academic? Does this person have standing in the field? The other way you can judge the type of sources you're looking at is where they come from. And what we're looking for are sources which are peer-reviewed, academic, expert, trusted, published and written. Here's a question. Journal articles are often preferred for literature review in an academic context. Why is this? Think about that. The answer's in front of you. It's because journal articles are peer-reviewed. They're academic. They're written by experts. They're reviewed by peers of the people who have written them. That's why they're preferred. So, you've started the reading. Now, there are some larger questions you need to ask yourself as you're reading. And I'm not just talking about who wrote it, what they found, what they did. I'm thinking about some of the larger, critical questions that you can ask yourself as you read. And here are some of them. Who are the researchers? What's their reputation? Do the findings support the research? Are there any biases evident? And perhaps the biggest one, the biggest question. Is it applicable? Is it relevant to your work? The key thing is that the research, the critique, starts with the reading. So, you've started reading. Now you've got to think about how you can group your notes, how you can organise your notes. There are a number of different ways. It depends on your questions. You might organise them chronologically, by time. You might organise them by the perspectives of different authors, the positions taken, the schools of thought, the method, how they did the research. Or, most commonly, you might organise it topically or thematically, like an essay. So, it's really important to note that whatever organisation you choose, it depends on your research question and the aims of your study. Ultimately, you have to synthesise the ideas and respond to the text. So, a tip. Create a plan, a sectioned plan as a document. And, as you read, take notes and import them directly into the plan, so that you have a sense of organisation and section as it happens. On to the writing component of the review. There are two key elements. One is a descriptive or reporting element, where you talk about what happened. You describe what the author has found, what they discussed, what they did. It's an account. The second crucial aspect of the literature review is an interpretive or critical element, the dialogue, where you ask and answer questions of the text. You analyse, you interpret, you synthesise, you bring together information. The second part is super important, because if we just stay at the first part, the descriptive reporting element, we run the risk of having our writing grounded in a shopping list style of writing, where we're saying, he noted, he found, she did this, she discovered. It becomes a list of ideas rather than an interpretation or a treatment of ideas, which is what a review is. So, how do we do this? How do we move our writing from the descriptive to the interpretive? Look at this example. Take 30 seconds to read it and look at what's going on. What you can probably see, as suggested by the colour we're using, is that the first part of this is descriptive. It's what Evans showed. The second part is interpretive, because we're saying here, Evans showed this, that the method was successful, and this was significant because. Let's look at another example. Take 30 seconds to read this again. You'll see a similar thing going on. We have a descriptive element, Wang et al. found something, and then an interpretive element, where Bruce argues why these findings were crucial, why they were important. So, when we're using this language, this was significant, this was crucial, we're flipping the writing, we're moving it from descriptive to interpretation, the critical component. And there's language we can use to do this, language we can use to highlight importance, to interpret, to give us a voice. This shows that. This is important. This is vital. This points to. And this language is important for two key reasons. One, it moves your writing from the descriptive to the interpretive, and two, it gives you a stronger writer's voice. It's you talking. It's you giving interpretation. Another element of the lit review is responding with critique. So, let's look at another example. As I give you these parts of the paragraph, read through them, and look at what's going on. It's a layered approach to writing. The first layer, again, shows us description. It's what Brent found. A second layer reveals some critique going on. And again, we have was limited in its application. This is some sort of deficit critique showing a limitation of Brent's work. Then we have a third element. And what you can see here is now we're offering a solution. It may have been more illustrative to do X, Y, and Z. And in a final bit to that, we have another critical part. But this time, it's a positive critique. Pivotal, longitudinal, multifacility, broad scope study. So, we have layers to this paragraph. Description, critique, solution. Let's look at some of the language of critiquing. We can have deficit critique, where we're pointing out limitations to the research, asking questions or pointing out limitations. It's fantastic once pointing out limitations, if we can then move the writing into offering solutions. That's being critical. We also have strengths-based critique, where we're looking at milestone study or things which are significant or groundbreaking or detailed or useful. This is the type of language which we can use. Let's look at another example. Now, pause the video, take 30 seconds to a minute to read through this and develop some impressions around this paragraph based upon that topic, Resilience at the Micro Level. Okay, having read it, can we say that this paragraph is on topic? Is it relevant? It is. Can we say that it's critical and interpretive? It isn't. So, what we have here is a shopping list of descriptive ideas around the topic. Let's look at the same paragraph again with some key differences. Take 30 seconds to a minute to look at the paragraph and look at the language and see what's going on here. Let's have a look at this. This paragraph will highlight some of the language which looks at the interpreting and connecting and you getting a voice. She suggests that. This understanding is crucial because. And we also have some positive critique going on here. It can be single words like pivotal or it might be things like successful and widely used. Her research makes it clear. A key implication drawn from this. What do you see that this language does? But it also gives a sense of connectivity between ideas. This gives you the narrative thread in your review. So, again, what we want is not just description of what researchers found or what researchers argue. What we want is review. And that is interpreting, connecting and critiquing. To finish up with, I'll offer you a checklist. Have I done these things? Analyse your work. Have you interpreted? Have you critiqued along with reporting and describing? Have you written on topic? Have you used your voice? For more help with academic skills, go to our website or for more videos, go to our YouTube channel. Thank you.
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Goodwyn, Wanda L. PhD, MSN, RN * ; Caiola, Courtney PhD, MPH, RN, CNE; Roberson, Donna PhD, FNP-BC
Wanda Goodwyn, PhD, MSN, RN, (2024 Graduate), East Carolina College of Nursing, Greenville, North Carolina, USA. Courtney Caiola, PhD, MPH, RN, CNE, is an Associate Professor, East Carolina College of Nursing, Affiliated Faculty, Center for Health Disparities, East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine, Greenville, North Carolina, USA. Donna Roberson, PhD, FNP-BC, is Professor and Executive Director for Program Evaluation, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
* Corresponding author: Wanda L. Goodwyn, e-mail: [email protected]
The purpose of our integrative review was to synthesize the literature examining relationships between depressive symptoms, silencing the self (STS), sexual relationship power (SRP), and HIV vulnerability among women in the United States. Literature searches were conducted through CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, SCOPUS, Sociological Abstracts, and SocINDEX. Integrative review methodology of Whittemore and Knafl guided the review process, and 37 articles met inclusion criteria. The Theory of Gender and Power, modified by Wingood and DiClemente, was the guiding framework to organize and synthesize findings. Primary findings suggest that depressive symptoms, STS, and SRP in relationships may individually influence women's vulnerability for acquiring HIV, yet research lags behind. Evidence documenting relationships between these factors is insufficient to draw generalizable conclusions. Findings suggest that the current literature on this topic does not reflect those women most highly affected by HIV and those who identify as African American or Black in the Southeast region of the United States.
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Emotional loneliness is related to objective cognitive function in older people ....
The Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is a type of academic paper, especially written on a specific research area. The SLR is the most important paper for researchers to get knowledge of certain area for further investigation. In SLR researchers normally dig and find the area of interest. The time and effort to collect, write, and report the statistics or figures found during this process is a cumbersome job. The same case is with the reader for reading and understanding other Scientific Literature Reviews (SLRs). It takes too much time to understand and read the SLR and conceptualize the statistics, figures, and other related numerals presentations. In the modern era of computing, researchers and ordinary readers want to visualize the literature in short, concrete, and meaningful ways. In this connection, this study attempts to visualize the literature in a specific domain, based on keywords and profile information. For this purpose, a mobile-based application is designed in this study to scrapes the data of a specific area based on a keyword. The user needs to give a keyword about any research area, i.e., Image Processing, etc. The application then scrapes all the parameter data from Google Scholar in a short time, and then some important items (based on keywords supplied) are visualized in graphs, charts, and numbers. Moreover, the scrapped data is downloadable in an Excel file for further analysis. The application may help scholars, researchers, and academicians to find and visualize the literature reviews more easily and efficiently.
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The clinical utility of whole body vibration: a review of the different types and dosing for application in metabolic diseases.
3. types of whole body vibration, 3.1. vertical (linear) vibration, 3.2. rotational (pivotal/teeter-totter/oscillating) vibration, 3.3. comparison of vertical and rotational vibration, 3.4. sonic wave vibration, 4. dose of whole body vibration, 4.1. frequency of vibration, 4.2. amplitude of vibration, 5. whole body vibration in metabolic disease, 5.1. use of whole body vibration in osteoporosis, 5.2. use of whole body vibration in overweight and obesity, 5.3. use of whole body vibration in type 2 diabetes, 5.4. use of whole body vibration in metabolic syndrome, 6. conclusions and future directions, author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.
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Type of Vibration | Frequency | Amplitude | Clinical Implications |
---|---|---|---|
Vertical | ↓ | ↓ | rehabilitation, bone health |
↑ | ↑ | weight loss | |
↓ | ↑ | increased quality of life in type 2 diabetes | |
↑ | ↓ | neuromuscular activation | |
Rotational | ↓ | ↓ | lowest side effect profile, indicated for neck pain or vertigo |
↓ | ↑ | reduction in HbA , reduction in waist circumference, and fat mass | |
Sonic Wave | ? | ? | stability and mood enhancements in elderly |
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Simon, A.B.; Bajaj, P.; Samson, J.; Harris, R.A. The Clinical Utility of Whole Body Vibration: A Review of the Different Types and Dosing for Application in Metabolic Diseases. J. Clin. Med. 2024 , 13 , 5249. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13175249
Simon AB, Bajaj P, Samson J, Harris RA. The Clinical Utility of Whole Body Vibration: A Review of the Different Types and Dosing for Application in Metabolic Diseases. Journal of Clinical Medicine . 2024; 13(17):5249. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13175249
Simon, Abigayle B., Pratima Bajaj, Joe Samson, and Ryan A. Harris. 2024. "The Clinical Utility of Whole Body Vibration: A Review of the Different Types and Dosing for Application in Metabolic Diseases" Journal of Clinical Medicine 13, no. 17: 5249. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13175249
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BMC Public Health volume 24 , Article number: 2417 ( 2024 ) Cite this article
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Disasters can cause casualties and significant financial loss. In accordance with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, areas affected by disasters must be built back better. Accurate post-disaster damage and loss assessments are critical for the success of recovery programs. This scoping review aimed to identify the components and entities of the healthcare sector’s post-disaster damage and loss assessment program.
An comprehensive search for relevant literature was performed using several databases, including the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, and Magiran. The search was limited to papers published between 2010 and 2022. In addition, we searched the grey literature for resources related to post-disaster damage and loss assessments. Study selection and data extraction were evaluated by a third reviewer. The main themes were determined through a consensus process and agreement among team members.
A total of 845 papers were identified, 41 of which were included in the review. The grey literature search yielded 1015 documents, 23 of which were associated with the study’s purpose. The findings were classified into five main themes, 20 subthemes, and 876 codes. The main-themes include the following: Concepts and Definitions; Post-Disaster Damage and Loss Assessment Procedures; Healthcare sector procedures; Assessments Tools, and Methods; Intra-sectoral, Inter-sectoral, and cross-cutting issues.
The existing corpus of literature on post-disaster damage and loss assessment programs within the healthcare sector offers only limited insights into the entities and components involved. It is of great importance that stakeholders have an extensive grasp of these pivotal concepts and principles, as they are fundamental in enabling effective responses to disasters, informed decision-making, and facilitating rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts. Consequently, there is a considerable scope for further investigation in this area.
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The most significant consequences of disasters are health impacts that occur in the aftermath [ 1 ]. Natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods not only have a detrimental impact on an individual’s health but also result in significant damage to the healthcare sector, reducing its capacity to respond and recover effectively. This, in turn, leads to a rise in mortality and morbidity rates [ 2 , 3 ]. Disasters directly damage the physical structure of hospitals, clinics, and healthcare centers and indirectly affect the health sector by destroying community infrastructure, such as water, electricity, fuel, transportation, and communication systems. Additionally, disasters can impact healthcare providers and their families [ 4 , 5 ].
Providing essential health services is challenging during disasters because of infrastructure failure and the inefficiency of healthcare centres [ 6 ]. It is evident that the health centres play a pivotal role in alleviating the negative consequences that arise in the aftermath of disasters. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to ensure the uninterrupted functioning of this vital infrastructures [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Comprehending the health consequences of disasters provides the basis for identifying demands, improving capacity, and providing opportunities for reconstruction and future disaster risk reduction [ 10 ].
The convergence of four seminal accords on disaster risk reduction, development finance, sustainable development, and climate change at the end of 2015 presented a singularly promising opportunity to achieve coherence across related policy domains. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction represents the global policy framework of the United Nations from 2015 to 2030. This represents a significant advance in global policy coherence concerning health, development, and climate change [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. One of the principal objectives of the Sendai Framework is to enhance disaster preparedness for an effective response and “build back better“(BBB) in recovery [ 14 ].
The scope of disaster recovery is broader than that of response. In the context of the health system, recovery is defined as the reconstruction, restoration, and upgrading of the components of a country’s health sector and the main functions of public health, in accordance with the BBB principle and the goals of sustainable development [ 15 ]. For an optimal reconstruction, it is necessary to develop a legal, technical, and comprehensive framework. The success of a reconstruction program depends on an accurate assessment of the damage, loss, and needs of the post-disaster area to determine the approaches, goals, priorities, and measures required for reconstruction [ 2 ].
The post-disaster reconstruction of the health system in developing countries is hindered by some factors, including a lack of knowledge and expertise, limited budget and planning, political competition, fraud, and embezzlement or misuse of social benefits [ 3 , 16 ]. Considering the argument of ‘humanitarian ignorance’, In light of the argument put forth by scholars who refer to this phenomenon as “humanitarian ignorance,“ [ 17 ], it can be argued that this “knowledge” does exist and that it is purposeful ignorance of said knowledge.
In 2008, the European Union, World Bank, and United Nations Development Group implemented a standard post-disaster assessment approach and developed a comprehensive and collaborative post-disaster assessment program [ 18 ]. In damage and loss assessments, experts in each sector calculate post-disaster damage and loss, which are essential in reconstruction programs [ 19 , 20 ].
Chapin et al. (2009) studied the impact of the 2007 Ica earthquake on healthcare facilities in southern Peru. They reported that after an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 in Peru, 60% of the health centers in the region were affected to the degree that they were unable to provide client services. This study revealed that reports of damage assessments in a single disaster were sometimes not the same [ 21 ]. Achour et al. (2020) evaluated hospital performance after the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake in Japan. Data analysis revealed that the impaired function of some healthcare centers in the affected areas significantly affected the health needs of the local communities [ 22 ].
Similar to other social sectors, the disaster impacts on the healthcare sector is considerable and is one of the concerns of managers and experts in the healthcare sector. In light of the pivotal role of the health sector in post-disaster response and recovery, as well as in the development of a post-disaster reconstruction program, it is crucial to conduct a thorough assessment of damage and losses incurred following a disaster. A post-disaster damage and loss assessment in the health sector can serve as a foundation for the creation of a coherent and integrated framework for health reconstruction. The absence of a post-disaster damage and loss assessment program may result in certain requirements being overlooked, the results of which are not deemed acceptable, facilities being allocated on a non-prioritized basis, and there being no basis for monitoring the implementation of plans and activities. Assessment is a demanding and decisive management task that is effective in decision-making, planning, monitoring, handling a program, and taking coherent actions. Post-disaster damage and loss assessment has a direct impact on decision-making, planning, monitoring of responses, and the implementation of recovery operations. Consequently, these assessments must be purposeful and scheduled.
This scoping review was conducted to identify the entities and components of post-disaster damage and loss assessment programs in the healthcare sector. The PCC framework, which includes the participants, concepts, and context recommended by the Joanna Briggs Institute, was used to develop the research question [ 23 ]. The research question for this scoping review is as follows: what information is available about the entities and components of the healthcare sector’s post-disaster damage and loss assessment program?
A knowledge gap exists in the field of post-disaster damage and loss assessment in the healthcare sector. To address this issue, the most appropriate methodology for achieving the study’s objective was identified as a scoping review. This systematic scoping review was conducted under the proposed Joanna Briggs Institute method [ 24 ]. The study included the following steps: defining and aligning the research objectives and questions, developing the inclusion and exclusion criteria, describing the planned approach to the evidence search, study selection, data extraction, presentation of the evidence, searching for evidence, selecting the evidence, extracting the evidence, analyzing the evidence, presenting the results, and summarizing the evidence [ 23 ]. The study protocol was registered in the Open Science Framework on 4 June 2022 [ 25 ] and was published in BMJ Open [ 26 ]. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR Checklist 1) [ 27 ] checklist was used to report the results of this scoping review.
In keeping with the scoping review methodology, our inclusion criteria (Table 1 ) were broad, and our search was comprehensive in capturing the entities and components of the healthcare sector’s post-disaster damage and loss assessment program. We included literature reviews, primary empirical articles, case studies, opinion pieces, and editorials published in English or Persian “due to geographical focus, and researcher language skills”. In addition, grey literature related to the study objective, including dissertations, organizational documents, post-disaster assessment reports, and guidelines, was searched and reviewed. Table 2 presents a distribution of studies by location, organization, and document type.
The search strategy was drafted with the help of an experienced informaticist librarian and was further refined through team discussion. Initially, a primary search was conducted on the Google Scholar, PubMed, World Bank, and PreventionWeb websites. The following concepts were extracted from the documents: post-conflict consequences in health systems, disaster impacts on the healthcare sector, post-disaster damage and loss assessment, post-earthquake hospital functionality, post-disaster damage and loss assessment, disaster damage, operational status of healthcare facilities during a hurricane, and the impacts of extreme events. An appropriate search strategy was used for each database (Table 3 ).
We searched all English and Persian articles published from 2010 to 2022 on the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, Google Scholar, and Magiran databases. Our search started on 20 January 2022. The search results were imported into Endnote X9 software. After removing the duplicates, J. Miri checked all the remaining titles to remove unrelated documents. The titles and abstracts of the remaining articles were independently examined by two authors (J. Miri and A.R. Raeisi) to reach a common understanding of the selection criteria, discussion of disagreements, and definition of the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The remaining articles were uploaded to Rayyan software to facilitate record screening. The full texts of articles whose abstracts did not meet the exclusion criteria or were ambiguous were reviewed. Discrepancies in inclusion or exclusion decisions were resolved through discussion (G. Atighechian). Finally, the reference lists were checked to identify relevant studies. In the grey literature search, researchers also investigated organizations’ websites related to disaster management, such as the UNDP, World Bank, UNDRR, International Recovery Platform, PreventionWeb, WHO, and FEMA. (Fig. 1 )
Adapted from the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram from Page et al. [ 47 ].
PRISMA flow diagram of the scoping review process.
Supplementary Tables 1 and 2 show the characteristics of the articles and grey literature discussed in this study. General information (title, authors, publication year, study location, and key findings) regarding the questions addressed in this scoping review was extracted from the selected studies. Two independent reviewers extracted all relevant information and any discrepancies were resolved through discussion.
The documents were organized and analyzed by the researchers using the MAXQDA 2020 software. The data analysis strategy employed at this juncture was a thematic analysis approach. Thematic analysis is a valuable approach for elucidating experiences, thoughts, or behaviors within a data set. Additionally, researchers have proposed that thematic analysis is an optimal analytical method for novice qualitative researchers due to its transparent and straightforward procedures [ 28 , 29 ].
The search of the related electronic databases led to the identification of 845 articles. After removing the duplicates, 826 studies remained. The titles were screened, and 102 potentially eligible articles were selected. The simultaneous title and abstract review by two independent reviewers led to the selection of 80 articles that were uploaded to Rayyan software. Finally, 41 articles were selected for full-text review. The grey literature search identified 1015 documents, reports, manuals, and guidelines based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and the study objectives, and 23 documents were selected for review.
Researchers have classified resources into five categories: articles, books, dissertations, policy documents, and reports. Studies have been conducted in different countries, half of which have been published in the last five years. The findings were categorized into five main themes, 20 subthemes, and 876 codes according to the research objectives and questions. The main themes, subthemes, and some related codes are presented in (Table 4 ).
This study provides a comprehensive perspective on post-disaster damage and loss assessment in the healthcare sector. To achieve a common understanding of post-disaster damage and loss assessment in the healthcare sector, the researchers first collected definitions and related concepts. Then, organized concepts related to damage and loss assessment teams, damage and loss assessment stages, data collection elements, assessment tools, and programs. The paper concludes with a discussion of the linkages between the healthcare sector and other sectors affected by disasters.
The health system comprises a wide range of organizations, institutions, groups, and individuals in governmental and nongovernmental sectors that policy, produce resources, finance, and provide health services to restore, promote, and maintain public health [ 30 ]. According to the WHO framework, the health system comprises six building blocks; service delivery, health workforce, information, medical products, vaccines and technologies, financing, leadership, and governance [ 31 , 32 ]. The realization and promotion of community health and fair cooperation in providing resources are crucial goals of the health system and are considered fundamental in most countries [ 33 ].
The continuity of services is critical in some businesses, such as those in the healthcare sector. However, these trends can be disrupted by disasters [ 34 ]. Achour et al. (2020) evaluated hospital performance after the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake in Japan. The occurrence of this event resulted in a disruption to the continuity of healthcare services. The investigation revealed that the primary causes of the disruption were damage to the infrastructure, including buildings, critical systems, and medical equipment. The results of the study indicated a 15% reduction in healthcare functionality in the affected regions [ 22 ]. In the study by Gufue et al. (2024), the direct economic loss to the health system caused by war-related looting or vandalism in the Tigray region of Northern Ethiopia was quantified in excess of $511 million. The assessment revealed that 80.6% of health posts, 73.6% of health centres, 80% of primary hospitals, 83.3% of general hospitals and two specialized hospitals were damaged and/or vandalized either fully or in part due to the war [ 35 ]. Therefore, a disaster recovery plan in the healthcare sector is essential for providing necessary measures and minimizing disaster consequences, And international frameworks such as Sendai play an important role in this regard and emphasize the need to develop and implement measures for disaster risk reduction and vulnerability [ 36 , 37 ].
For reconstruction, a reliable post-disaster damage and loss assessment method is required. The diversity of approaches and assessment-related outputs have led to various challenges. A significant obstacle to post-disaster damage and loss assessment is access to consistent, dependable, and detailed data on the impact of disasters. Establishing guidelines for reporting post-disaster damage and loss assessments is necessary to help national and regional institutions collect information in a structured manner [ 38 ]. Accurate data on disaster damage and losses are crucial for effective risk management, including loss accounting, disaster forensics, and risk analysis [ 39 ]. Assessment information is pivotal for effective policy development, resource allocation, and disaster preparedness [ 40 ]. We can improve disaster management and link disaster management science to disaster risk reduction policymaking by using these data [ 38 ].
In the Kermanshah Earthquake Lessons Learned study conducted by Khankeh et al. (2018) in Iran, it was recommended that a standard protocol be established for the receipt of reports from disaster locations in the initial days and weeks following an earthquake. Moreover, the establishment of rapid assessment teams at the local, regional, and national levels, with specific guidelines, was considered a crucial step [ 41 ]. The composition of the assessment team depends on the sector to be assessed. Healthcare sector assessment teams from different disciplines, including public health experts, physicians, epidemiologists, architects, civil engineers, and health economists, can estimate the value of production losses [ 18 , 31 , 42 ].
The post-disaster damage and loss assessment methodology includes pre-disaster baseline data collection, disaster effects, impact analysis, recovery needs estimation, and strategies that recommend appropriate interventions, implementation arrangements, and policies [ 43 ]. Documentation of damage and loss assessments should begin as soon as possible after a disaster [ 44 ]. A post-disaster damage and loss assessment report is a live document that is revised as better data become available [ 45 ]. Post-disaster damage and loss assessment reports should differ according to the assessment stage and type of disaster [ 46 ].
There is the fact that all societies and countries are susceptible to disasters. The primary responsibility for disaster and emergency management is affected by local communities and countries. After a disaster, the healthcare sector faces multiple hazards, limited resources for dealing with them, and high expectations regarding their performance. Multiple stakeholders engage in post-disaster damage and loss assessments and their interventions are guided by various damage and loss assessment methods. Such variations in techniques and related assessment outputs challenge the comparability across assessments and often present conflicting images. Despite the long history of reconstruction in Iran, there are numerous challenges in assessing post-disaster damage and loss. Therefore, there is a need to develop a set of post-disaster damage and loss assessment frameworks, including methodologies and guidelines, for the healthcare sector.
Limited scientific resources for disaster damage assessment in the healthcare sector, access to imperative content, and documentation in the country were limitations of this study. As with all scoping reviews, we did not formally evaluate the quality of the evidence, and because of the varying nature of the studies, only a limited synthesis of results was possible.
In light of the pivotal role of the post-disaster healthcare sector, it is of the utmost importance to develop appropriate post-disaster damage and loss assessment programme that can be adapted to different socio-cultural contexts and varying resources. To date, there have been few studies that have discussed the entities and components of disaster damage and loss assessment programme in the healthcare sector. It was, however, determined that identifying the entities and components of the healthcare sector’s post-disaster damage and loss assessment program was a necessary step for advancing the healthcare sector in Iran. This review offers a detailed examination of post-disaster damage and loss assessment programs within the healthcare sector.
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].
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The authors express their gratitude to the Vice Chancellor for Research and Technology at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences for financial support.
This work was supported by the Vice-Chancellery of Research and Technology at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran [grant no. 3400686].
Authors and affiliations.
Student Research Committee, School of Management and Medical Information Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Golrokh Atighechian
Department of Health in Disaster and Emergencies, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Hesam Seyedin
Health Management and Economics Research Center, Department of Health Services Management, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Ahmad Reza Raeisi
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J. Miri contributed to study design, title, abstract and full-text screening, data extraction, data analysis, writing the first draft of the manuscript, and subsequent revisions of the manuscript. A.R. Raeisi contributed to study design, literature search and project management. G. Atighechian was also involved in drafting the abstract, full-text screening, data extraction and writing the manuscript at all stages. H. Seyedin contributed to the study design and drafting of the manuscript. All authors critically revised the manuscript and approved the final version for submission.
Correspondence to Ahmad Reza Raeisi .
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This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran (IR.MUI.NUREMA.REC.1400.171).
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The authors declare no competing interests.
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Miri, J., Atighechian, G., Seyedin, H. et al. Components and entities of post-disaster damage and loss assessment program in healthcare sector: a scoping review. BMC Public Health 24 , 2417 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19523-5
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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19523-5
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What kinds of literature reviews are written? Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified.
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The purpose of a literature review. The four main objectives of a literature review are:. Studying the references of your research area; Summarizing the main arguments; Identifying current gaps, stances, and issues; Presenting all of the above in a text; Ultimately, the main goal of a literature review is to provide the researcher with sufficient knowledge about the topic in question so that ...
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A literature review is a review and synthesis of existing research on a topic or research question. A literature review is meant to analyze the scholarly literature, make connections across writings and identify strengths, weaknesses, trends, and missing conversations. A literature review should address different aspects of a topic as it ...
Conducting a literature review is a means of demonstrating the author's knowledge about a particular field of study, including vocabulary, theories, key variables and phenomena, and its methods and history.Conducting a literature review also informs the student of the influential researchers and research groups in the field (Randolph, 2009). ...
What is a Literature Review?
"A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be ...
A literature review is a written work that: Compiles significant research published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers; Surveys scholarly articles, books, dissertations, conference proceedings, and other sources; Examines contrasting perspectives, theoretical approaches, methodologies, findings, results, conclusions.
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Literature review is approached as a process of engaging with the discourse of scholarly communities that will help graduate researchers refine, define, and express their own scholarly vision and voice. This orientation on research as an exploratory practice, rather than merely a series of predetermined steps in a systematic method, allows the ...
A literature review is an integrated analysis-- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question. That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.
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A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area. Often part of the introduction to an essay, research report or thesis, the literature review is literally a "re" view or "look again" at what has already been written about the topic, wherein the author analyzes a segment of a published body of knowledge through summary, classification, and comparison of prior ...
literature review is an aid to gathering and synthesising that information. The pur-pose of the literature review is to draw on and critique previous studies in an orderly, precise and analytical manner. The fundamental aim of a literature review is to provide a comprehensive picture of the knowledge relating to a specific topic.
Most literature reviews are embedded in articles, books, and dissertations. In most research articles, there are set as a specific section, usually titled, "literature review", so they are hard to miss.But, sometimes, they are part of the narrative of the introduction of a book or article. This section is easily recognized since the author is engaging with other academics and experts by ...
A literature review and a theoretical framework are not the same thing and cannot be used interchangeably. While a theoretical framework describes the theoretical underpinnings of your work, a literature review critically evaluates existing research relating to your topic. You'll likely need both in your dissertation.
Mapping the gap. The purpose of the literature review section of a manuscript is not to report what is known about your topic. The purpose is to identify what remains unknown—what academic writing scholar Janet Giltrow has called the 'knowledge deficit'—thus establishing the need for your research study [].In an earlier Writer's Craft instalment, the Problem-Gap-Hook heuristic was ...
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The literature of a literature review is not made up of novels and short stories and poetry—but is the collection of writing and research that has been produced on a particular topic. The purpose of the literature review is to give you an overview of a particular topic. Your job is to discover the research that has been done, the major ...
What is the purpose of a literature review? And what does one consist of? Stop the video now, write some notes in answer to those questions, and reflect on some of the answers as we go through some of the ideas in this video. First of all, defining a literature review. Pause the video and read this definition from Ridley.
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The Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is a type of academic paper, especially written on a specific research area. The SLR is the most important paper for researchers to get knowledge of certain area for further investigation. In SLR researchers normally dig and find the area of interest. The time and effort to collect, write, and report the statistics or figures found during this process is ...
Purpose of this review. The following systematic literature review attempted to discover the most problematised regions, areas of education, and focused groups portrayed in research, the meaning of the most investigated elements of the digital divide, and the properties of the research design used. Without an initial hypothesis, the foundations ...
Thus, the purpose of this review is to provide an overview of recent literature detailing the different types of WBV, the various parameters that contribute to WBV efficacy, and the evidence of WBV in metabolic disease. A systematic search was conducted using Medline, Embase, Cochrane, CINAHL, and PubMed.
A total of 845 papers were identified, 41 of which were included in the review. The grey literature search yielded 1015 documents, 23 of which were associated with the study's purpose. The findings were classified into five main themes, 20 subthemes, and 876 codes. The main-themes include the following: Concepts and Definitions; Post-Disaster ...
As such, the purpose of the current study was to conduct a scoping review to synthesize evidence on the topic of racial and ethnic disparities in the physical and mental or behavioral healthcare utilization for children in the U.S. foster care system (PROSPERO ID: CRD42021272072). ... Literature Review. Release Date. 20240708 (PsycINFO) References.