article review methods

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• This Or That Game
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• Critical Reviews

How to Write an Article Review (With Examples)

Last Updated: April 24, 2024 Fact Checked

Preparing to Write Your Review

Writing the article review, sample article reviews, expert q&a.

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 3,114,875 times.

An article review is both a summary and an evaluation of another writer's article. Teachers often assign article reviews to introduce students to the work of experts in the field. Experts also are often asked to review the work of other professionals. Understanding the main points and arguments of the article is essential for an accurate summation. Logical evaluation of the article's main theme, supporting arguments, and implications for further research is an important element of a review . Here are a few guidelines for writing an article review.

Education specialist Alexander Peterman recommends: "In the case of a review, your objective should be to reflect on the effectiveness of what has already been written, rather than writing to inform your audience about a subject."

Article Review 101

• Read the article very closely, and then take time to reflect on your evaluation. Consider whether the article effectively achieves what it set out to.
• Write out a full article review by completing your intro, summary, evaluation, and conclusion. Don't forget to add a title, too!
• Proofread your review for mistakes (like grammar and usage), while also cutting down on needless information.

• Article reviews present more than just an opinion. You will engage with the text to create a response to the scholarly writer's ideas. You will respond to and use ideas, theories, and research from your studies. Your critique of the article will be based on proof and your own thoughtful reasoning.
• An article review only responds to the author's research. It typically does not provide any new research. However, if you are correcting misleading or otherwise incorrect points, some new data may be presented.
• An article review both summarizes and evaluates the article.

• Summarize the article. Focus on the important points, claims, and information.
• Discuss the positive aspects of the article. Think about what the author does well, good points she makes, and insightful observations.
• Identify contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the text. Determine if there is enough data or research included to support the author's claims. Find any unanswered questions left in the article.

• Make note of words or issues you don't understand and questions you have.
• Look up terms or concepts you are unfamiliar with, so you can fully understand the article. Read about concepts in-depth to make sure you understand their full context.

• Pay careful attention to the meaning of the article. Make sure you fully understand the article. The only way to write a good article review is to understand the article.

• With either method, make an outline of the main points made in the article and the supporting research or arguments. It is strictly a restatement of the main points of the article and does not include your opinions.
• After putting the article in your own words, decide which parts of the article you want to discuss in your review. You can focus on the theoretical approach, the content, the presentation or interpretation of evidence, or the style. You will always discuss the main issues of the article, but you can sometimes also focus on certain aspects. This comes in handy if you want to focus the review towards the content of a course.
• Review the summary outline to eliminate unnecessary items. Erase or cross out the less important arguments or supplemental information. Your revised summary can serve as the basis for the summary you provide at the beginning of your review.

• What does the article set out to do?
• What is the theoretical framework or assumptions?
• Are the central concepts clearly defined?
• How adequate is the evidence?
• How does the article fit into the literature and field?
• Does it advance the knowledge of the subject?
• How clear is the author's writing? Don't: include superficial opinions or your personal reaction. Do: pay attention to your biases, so you can overcome them.

• For example, in MLA , a citation may look like: Duvall, John N. "The (Super)Marketplace of Images: Television as Unmediated Mediation in DeLillo's White Noise ." Arizona Quarterly 50.3 (1994): 127-53. Print. [9] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source

• For example: The article, "Condom use will increase the spread of AIDS," was written by Anthony Zimmerman, a Catholic priest.

• Your introduction should only be 10-25% of your review.
• End the introduction with your thesis. Your thesis should address the above issues. For example: Although the author has some good points, his article is biased and contains some misinterpretation of data from others’ analysis of the effectiveness of the condom.

• Use direct quotes from the author sparingly.
• Review the summary you have written. Read over your summary many times to ensure that your words are an accurate description of the author's article.

• Support your critique with evidence from the article or other texts.
• The summary portion is very important for your critique. You must make the author's argument clear in the summary section for your evaluation to make sense.
• Remember, this is not where you say if you liked the article or not. You are assessing the significance and relevance of the article.
• Use a topic sentence and supportive arguments for each opinion. For example, you might address a particular strength in the first sentence of the opinion section, followed by several sentences elaborating on the significance of the point.

• This should only be about 10% of your overall essay.
• For example: This critical review has evaluated the article "Condom use will increase the spread of AIDS" by Anthony Zimmerman. The arguments in the article show the presence of bias, prejudice, argumentative writing without supporting details, and misinformation. These points weaken the author’s arguments and reduce his credibility.

• Make sure you have identified and discussed the 3-4 key issues in the article.

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://libguides.cmich.edu/writinghelp/articlereview
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4548566/
• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 24 July 2020.
• ↑ https://guides.library.queensu.ca/introduction-research/writing/critical
• ↑ https://www.iup.edu/writingcenter/writing-resources/organization-and-structure/creating-an-outline.html
• ↑ https://writing.umn.edu/sws/assets/pdf/quicktips/titles.pdf
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_periodicals.html
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4548565/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/593/2014/06/How_to_Summarize_a_Research_Article1.pdf
• ↑ https://www.uis.edu/learning-hub/writing-resources/handouts/learning-hub/how-to-review-a-journal-article
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/

About This Article

If you have to write an article review, read through the original article closely, taking notes and highlighting important sections as you read. Next, rewrite the article in your own words, either in a long paragraph or as an outline. Open your article review by citing the article, then write an introduction which states the article’s thesis. Next, summarize the article, followed by your opinion about whether the article was clear, thorough, and useful. Finish with a paragraph that summarizes the main points of the article and your opinions. To learn more about what to include in your personal critique of the article, keep reading the article! Did this summary help you? Yes No

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Prince Asiedu-Gyan

Apr 22, 2022

Did this article help you?

Sammy James

Sep 12, 2017

Juabin Matey

Aug 30, 2017

Vanita Meghrajani

Jul 21, 2016

Nov 27, 2018

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

Get all the best how-tos!

Sign up for wikiHow's weekly email newsletter

Get Started

Take the first step and invest in your future.

Online Programs

Offering flexibility & convenience in 51 online degrees & programs.

Prairie Stars

Featuring 15 intercollegiate NCAA Div II athletic teams.

Find your Fit

UIS has over 85 student and 10 greek life organizations, and many volunteer opportunities.

Arts & Culture

Celebrating the arts to create rich cultural experiences on campus.

Give Like a Star

Your generosity helps fuel fundraising for scholarships, programs and new initiatives.

Bragging Rights

UIS was listed No. 1 in Illinois and No. 3 in the Midwest in 2023 rankings.

• Quick links Applicants & Students Important Apps & Links Alumni Faculty and Staff Community Admissions How to Apply Cost & Aid Tuition Calculator Registrar Orientation Visit Campus Academics Register for Class Programs of Study Online Degrees & Programs Graduate Education International Student Services Study Away Student Support Bookstore UIS Life Dining Diversity & Inclusion Get Involved Health & Wellness COVID-19 United in Safety Residence Life Student Life Programs UIS Connection Important Apps UIS Mobile App Advise U Canvas myUIS i-card Balance Pay My Bill - UIS Bursar Self-Service Email Resources Bookstore Box Information Technology Services Library Orbit Policies Webtools Get Connected Area Information Calendar Campus Recreation Departments & Programs (A-Z) Parking UIS Newsroom The Observer Connect & Get Involved Update your Info Alumni Events Alumni Networks & Groups Volunteer Opportunities Alumni Board News & Publications Featured Alumni Alumni News UIS Alumni Magazine Resources Order your Transcripts Give Back Alumni Programs Career Development Services & Support Accessibility Services Campus Services Campus Police Facilities & Services Registrar Faculty & Staff Resources Website Project Request Web Services Training & Tools Academic Impressions Career Connect CSA Reporting Cybersecurity Training Faculty Research FERPA Training Website Login Campus Resources Newsroom Campus Calendar Campus Maps i-Card Human Resources Public Relations Webtools Arts & Events UIS Performing Arts Center Visual Arts Gallery Event Calendar Sangamon Experience Center for Lincoln Studies ECCE Speaker Series Community Engagement Center for State Policy and Leadership Illinois Innocence Project Innovate Springfield Central IL Nonprofit Resource Center NPR Illinois Community Resources Child Protection Training Academy Office of Electronic Media University Archives/IRAD Institute for Illinois Public Finance

Request Info

How to Review a Journal Article

• Request Info Request info for....     Undergraduate/Graduate     Online     Study Away     Continuing & Professional Education     International Student Services     General Inquiries

For many kinds of assignments, like a  literature review , you may be asked to offer a critique or review of a journal article. This is an opportunity for you as a scholar to offer your  qualified opinion  and  evaluation  of how another scholar has composed their article, argument, and research. That means you will be expected to go beyond a simple  summary  of the article and evaluate it on a deeper level. As a college student, this might sound intimidating. However, as you engage with the research process, you are becoming immersed in a particular topic, and your insights about the way that topic is presented are valuable and can contribute to the overall conversation surrounding your topic.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!

Some disciplines, like Criminal Justice, may only want you to summarize the article without including your opinion or evaluation. If your assignment is to summarize the article only, please see our literature review handout.

Before getting started on the critique, it is important to review the article thoroughly and critically. To do this, we recommend take notes,  annotating , and reading the article several times before critiquing. As you read, be sure to note important items like the thesis, purpose, research questions, hypotheses, methods, evidence, key findings, major conclusions, tone, and publication information. Depending on your writing context, some of these items may not be applicable.

Questions to Consider

To evaluate a source, consider some of the following questions. They are broken down into different categories, but answering these questions will help you consider what areas to examine. With each category, we recommend identifying the strengths and weaknesses in each since that is a critical part of evaluation.

Evaluating Purpose and Argument

• How well is the purpose made clear in the introduction through background/context and thesis?
• How well does the abstract represent and summarize the article’s major points and argument?
• How well does the objective of the experiment or of the observation fill a need for the field?
• How well is the argument/purpose articulated and discussed throughout the body of the text?
• How well does the discussion maintain cohesion?

Evaluating the Presentation/Organization of Information

• How appropriate and clear is the title of the article?
• Where could the author have benefited from expanding, condensing, or omitting ideas?
• How clear are the author’s statements? Challenge ambiguous statements.
• What underlying assumptions does the author have, and how does this affect the credibility or clarity of their article?
• How objective is the author in his or her discussion of the topic?
• How well does the organization fit the article’s purpose and articulate key goals?

Evaluating Methods

• How appropriate are the study design and methods for the purposes of the study?
• How detailed are the methods being described? Is the author leaving out important steps or considerations?
• Have the procedures been presented in enough detail to enable the reader to duplicate them?

Evaluating Data

• Scan and spot-check calculations. Are the statistical methods appropriate?
• Do you find any content repeated or duplicated?
• How many errors of fact and interpretation does the author include? (You can check on this by looking up the references the author cites).
• What pertinent literature has the author cited, and have they used this literature appropriately?

Following, we have an example of a summary and an evaluation of a research article. Note that in most literature review contexts, the summary and evaluation would be much shorter. This extended example shows the different ways a student can critique and write about an article.

Chik, A. (2012). Digital gameplay for autonomous foreign language learning: Gamers’ and language teachers’ perspectives. In H. Reinders (ed.),  Digital games in language learning and teaching  (pp. 95-114). Eastbourne, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Be sure to include the full citation either in a reference page or near your evaluation if writing an  annotated bibliography .

In Chik’s article “Digital Gameplay for Autonomous Foreign Language Learning: Gamers’ and Teachers’ Perspectives”, she explores the ways in which “digital gamers manage gaming and gaming-related activities to assume autonomy in their foreign language learning,” (96) which is presented in contrast to how teachers view the “pedagogical potential” of gaming. The research was described as an “umbrella project” consisting of two parts. The first part examined 34 language teachers’ perspectives who had limited experience with gaming (only five stated they played games regularly) (99). Their data was recorded through a survey, class discussion, and a seven-day gaming trial done by six teachers who recorded their reflections through personal blog posts. The second part explored undergraduate gaming habits of ten Hong Kong students who were regular gamers. Their habits were recorded through language learning histories, videotaped gaming sessions, blog entries of gaming practices, group discussion sessions, stimulated recall sessions on gaming videos, interviews with other gamers, and posts from online discussion forums. The research shows that while students recognize the educational potential of games and have seen benefits of it in their lives, the instructors overall do not see the positive impacts of gaming on foreign language learning.

The summary includes the article’s purpose, methods, results, discussion, and citations when necessary.

This article did a good job representing the undergraduate gamers’ voices through extended quotes and stories. Particularly for the data collection of the undergraduate gamers, there were many opportunities for an in-depth examination of their gaming practices and histories. However, the representation of the teachers in this study was very uneven when compared to the students. Not only were teachers labeled as numbers while the students picked out their own pseudonyms, but also when viewing the data collection, the undergraduate students were more closely examined in comparison to the teachers in the study. While the students have fifteen extended quotes describing their experiences in their research section, the teachers only have two of these instances in their section, which shows just how imbalanced the study is when presenting instructor voices.

Some research methods, like the recorded gaming sessions, were only used with students whereas teachers were only asked to blog about their gaming experiences. This creates a richer narrative for the students while also failing to give instructors the chance to have more nuanced perspectives. This lack of nuance also stems from the emphasis of the non-gamer teachers over the gamer teachers. The non-gamer teachers’ perspectives provide a stark contrast to the undergraduate gamer experiences and fits neatly with the narrative of teachers not valuing gaming as an educational tool. However, the study mentioned five teachers that were regular gamers whose perspectives are left to a short section at the end of the presentation of the teachers’ results. This was an opportunity to give the teacher group a more complex story, and the opportunity was entirely missed.

Additionally, the context of this study was not entirely clear. The instructors were recruited through a master’s level course, but the content of the course and the institution’s background is not discussed. Understanding this context helps us understand the course’s purpose(s) and how those purposes may have influenced the ways in which these teachers interpreted and saw games. It was also unclear how Chik was connected to this masters’ class and to the students. Why these particular teachers and students were recruited was not explicitly defined and also has the potential to skew results in a particular direction.

Overall, I was inclined to agree with the idea that students can benefit from language acquisition through gaming while instructors may not see the instructional value, but I believe the way the research was conducted and portrayed in this article made it very difficult to support Chik’s specific findings.

Some professors like you to begin an evaluation with something positive but isn’t always necessary.

The evaluation is clearly organized and uses transitional phrases when moving to a new topic.

This evaluation includes a summative statement that gives the overall impression of the article at the end, but this can also be placed at the beginning of the evaluation.

This evaluation mainly discusses the representation of data and methods. However, other areas, like organization, are open to critique.

How to Write an Article Review: Practical Tips and Examples

Table of contents

• 1 What Is an Article Review?
• 2 Different Types of Article Review
• 3.1 Critical review
• 3.2 Literature review
• 3.3 Mapping review/systematic map
• 3.4 Meta-analysis
• 3.5 Overview
• 3.6 Qualitative Systematic Review/Qualitative Evidence Synthesis
• 3.7 Rapid review
• 3.8 Scoping review
• 3.9 Systematic review
• 3.10 Umbrella review
• 4 Formatting
• 5 How To Write An Article Review
• 6 Article Review Outline
• 7 10 Tips for Writing an Article Review
• 8 An Article Review Example

What Is an Article Review?

Before you get started, learn what an article review is. It can be defined as a work that combines elements of summary and critical analysis. If you are writing an article review, you should take a close look at another author’s work. Many experts regularly practice evaluating the work of others. The purpose of this is to improve writing skills.

This kind of work belongs to professional pieces of writing because the process of crafting this paper requires reviewing, summarizing, and understanding the topic. Only experts are able to compose really good reviews containing a logical evaluation of a paper as well as a critique.

Your task is not to provide new information. You should process what you have in a certain publication.

Different Types of Article Review

In academic writing, the landscape of article reviews is diverse and nuanced, encompassing a variety of formats that cater to different research purposes and methodologies. Among these, three main types of article reviews stand out due to their distinct approaches and applications:

• Narrative. The basic focus here is the author’s personal experience. Judgments are presented through the prism of experiences and subsequent realizations. Besides, the use of emotional recollections is acceptable.
• Evidence. There is a significant difference from the narrative review. An in-depth study of the subject is assumed, and conclusions are built on arguments. The author may consider theories or concrete facts to support that.
• Systematic. The structure of the piece explains the approach to writing. The answer to what’s a systematic review lies on the surface. The writer should pay special attention to the chronology and logic of the narrative.

Understanding 10 Common Types

Don`t rush looking at meta-analysis vs. systematic review. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with other formats and topics of texts. This will allow you to understand the types of essays better and select them based on your request. For this purpose, we`ll discuss the typology of reviews below.

Critical review

The critical review definition says that the author must be objective and have arguments for each thought. Sometimes, amateur authors believe that they should “criticize” something. However, it is important to understand the difference since objectivity and the absence of emotional judgments are prioritized. The structure of this type of review article is as follows:

• Introduction;
• Conclusion.

“Stuffing” of the text is based on such elements as methodology, argumentation, evidence, and theory base. The subject of study is stated at the beginning of the material. Then follows the transition to the main part (facts). The final word summarizes all the information voiced earlier.

It is a mistake to believe that critical reviews are devoid of evaluation. The author’s art lies in maneuvering between facts. Smooth transition from one argument to another and lays out the conclusions in the reader. That is why such texts are used in science. The critical reviews meaning is especially tangible in medical topics.

Literature review

Literature is the basis for this type of work ─ books, essays, and articles become a source of information. Thus, the author should rethink the voiced information. After that, it is possible to proceed to conclusions. The methodology aims to find interconnections, repetitions, and even “gaps” in the literature. One important item is the referencing of sources. Footnotes are possible in the work itself or the list of resources used.

These types of research reviews often explore myths since there are often inconsistencies in mythology. Sometimes, there is contrary information. In this case, the author has to gather all existing theories. The essence does not always lie in the confirmation of facts. There are other different types of reviews for this purpose. In literary reviews, the object of study may be characters or traditions. This is where the author’s space for discovery opens up. Inconsistencies in the data can tell important details about particular periods or cultures. At the same time, patterns reveal well-established facts. Make sure to outline your work before you write. This will help you with essay writing .

Mapping review/systematic map

A mapping review, also known as a systematic map, is a unique approach to surveying and organizing existing literature, providing a panoramic view of the research landscape. This paper systematically categorizes and maps out the available literature on a particular topic, emphasizing breadth over depth. Its primary goal is to present a comprehensive visual representation of the research distribution, offering insights into the overall scope of a subject.

One of the strengths of systematic reviews is that they deeply focus on a research question with detailed analysis and synthesis, while mapping review prioritizes breadth. It identifies and categorizes a broad range of studies without necessarily providing in-depth critique or content synthesis. This approach allows for a broader understanding of the field, making it especially useful in the early stages of research. Mapping reviews excel in identifying gaps in the existing body of literature.

By systematically mapping the distribution of research, researchers can pinpoint areas where studies are scarce or nonexistent, helping to guide future research directions. This makes mapping reviews a valuable tool for researchers seeking to contribute meaningfully to a field by addressing unexplored or underexplored areas.

Meta-analysis

Meta-analysis is a powerful statistical technique. It systematically combines the results of multiple studies to derive comprehensive and nuanced insights. This method goes beyond the limitations of individual studies, offering a more robust understanding of a particular phenomenon by synthesizing data from diverse sources.

Meta-analysis employs a rigorous methodology. It involves the systematic collection and statistical integration of data from multiple studies. This methodological rigor ensures a standardized and unbiased approach to data synthesis. It is applied across various disciplines, from medicine and psychology to social sciences, providing a quantitative assessment of the overall effect of an intervention or the strength of an association.

In evidence-based fields, where informed decision-making relies on a thorough understanding of existing research, meta-analysis plays a pivotal role. It offers a quantitative overview of the collective evidence, helping researchers, policymakers, and practitioners make more informed decisions. By synthesizing results from diverse studies, meta-analysis contributes to the establishment of robust evidence-based practices, enhancing the reliability and credibility of findings in various fields. To present your research findings in the most readable way possible, learn how to write a summary of article .

If the key purpose of systematic review is to maximize the disclosure of facts, the opposite is true here. Imagine a video shot by a quadcopter from an altitude. The viewer sees a vast area of terrain without focusing on individual details. Overviews follow the same principle. The author gives a general picture of the events or objects described.

These types of reviews often seem simple. However, the role of the researcher becomes a very demanding one. The point is not just to list facts. Here, the search for information comes to the fore. After all, it is such reports that, in the future, will provide the basis for researching issues more narrowly. In essence, you yourself create a new source of information ─ students who worry that somebody may critique the author’s article love this type of material. However, there are no questions for the author; they just set the stage for discussions in different fields.

An example of this type of report would be a collection of research results from scientists. For example, statistics on the treatment of patients with certain diseases. In such a case, reference is made to scientific articles and doctrines. Based on this information, readers can speak about the effectiveness of certain treatment methods.

Qualitative Systematic Review/Qualitative Evidence Synthesis

One of the next types of review articles represents a meticulous effort to synthesize and analyze qualitative studies within a specific research domain.

The focus is synthesizing qualitative studies, employing a systematic and rigorous approach to extract meaningful insights. Its significance lies in its ability to provide a nuanced understanding of complex phenomena, offering a qualitative lens to complement quantitative analyses. Researchers can uncover patterns, themes, and contextual nuances that may elude traditional quantitative approaches by systematically reviewing and synthesizing qualitative data.

Often, you may meet discussion: is a systematic review quantitative or qualitative? The application of qualitative systematic reviews extends across diverse research domains, from healthcare and social sciences to education and psychology. For example, this approach can offer a comprehensive understanding of patient experiences and preferences in healthcare. In social sciences, it can illuminate cultural or societal dynamics. Its versatility makes it a valuable tool for researchers exploring, interpreting, and integrating qualitative findings to enrich their understanding of complex phenomena within their respective fields.

Rapid review

If you don’t know how to write an article review , try starting with this format. It is the complete opposite of everything we talked about above. The key advantage and feature is speed. Quick overviews are used when time is limited. The focus can go to individual details (key). Often, the focus is still on the principal points.

Often, these types of review papers are critically needed in politics. This method helps to communicate important information to the reader quickly. An example can be a comparison of the election programs of two politicians. The author can show the key differences. Or it can make an overview based on the theses of the opponents’ proposals on different topics.

Seeming simplicity becomes power. Such texts allow the reader to make a quick decision. The author’s task is to understand potential interests and needs. Then, highlight and present the most important data as concisely as possible. In addition to politics, such reports are often used in communications, advertising, and marketing. Experienced writers mention the one-minute principle. This means you can count on 60 seconds of the reader’s attention. If you managed to hook them ─ bravo, you have done the job!

Scoping review

If you read the official scoping review definition, you may find similarities with the systematic type of review. However, recall is a sequential and logical study in the second case. It’s like you stack things on a shelf by color, size, and texture.

This type of review can be more difficult to understand. The basic concept is to explore what is called the field of subjects. This means, on the one hand, exploring a particular topic through the existing data about it. The author tries to find gaps or patterns by drawing on sources of information.

Another good comparison between systematic and this type of review is imagining as if drawing a picture. In the first case, you will think through every nuance and detail, why it is there, and how it “moves the story.” In the second case, it is as if you are painting a picture with “broad strokes.” In doing so, you can explain your motives for choosing the primary color. For example: “I chose the emerald color because all the cultural publications say it’s a trend”. The same goes for texts.

Systematic review

Sometimes, you may encounter a battle: narrative review vs. systematic review. The point is not to compare but to understand the different types of papers. Once you understand their purpose, you can present your data better and choose a more readable format. The systematic approach can be called the most scientific. Such a review relies on the following steps:

• Literature search;
• Evaluating the information;
• Data processing;
• Careful analysis of the material.

It is the fourth point that is key. The writer should carefully process the information before using it. However, 80% of your work’s result depends on this stage’s seriousness.

A rigorous approach to data selection produces an array of factual data. That is why this method is so often used in science, education, and social fields. Where accuracy is important. At the same time, the popularity of this approach is growing in other directions.

Systematic reviews allow for using different data and methodologies,, but with one important caveat ─ if the author manages to keep the narrative structured and explain the reason for certain methods. It is not about rigor. The task of this type of review is to preserve the facts, which dictates consistency and rationality.

Umbrella review

An umbrella review is a distinctive approach that involves the review of existing reviews, providing a comprehensive synthesis of evidence on a specific topic. The methodology of an umbrella review entails systematically examining and summarizing findings from multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

This method ensures a rigorous and consolidated analysis of the existing evidence. The application of an umbrella review is broad, spanning various fields such as medicine, public health, and social sciences. It is particularly useful when a substantial body of systematic reviews exists, allowing researchers to draw overarching conclusions from the collective findings.

It allows the summarization of existing reviews and provides a new perspective on individual subtopics of the main object of study. In the context of the umbrella method, the comparison “bird’s eye view” is often cited. A bird in flight can see the whole panorama and shift its gaze to specific objects simultaneously. What becomes relevant at a particular moment? The author will face the same task.

On the one hand, you must delve into the offshoots of the researched topic. On the other hand, focus on the topic or object of study as a whole. Such a concept allows you to open up new perspectives and thoughts.

Different types of formatting styles are used for article review writing. It mainly depends on the guidelines that are provided by the instructor, sometimes, professors even provide an article review template that needs to be followed.

Here are some common types of formatting styles that you should be aware of when you start writing an article review:

• APA (American Psychological Association) – An APA format article review is commonly used for social sciences. It has guidelines for formatting the title, abstract, body paragraphs, and references. For example, the title of an article in APA format is in sentence case, whereas the publication title is in title case.
• MLA (Modern Language Association): This is a formatting style often used in humanities, such as language studies and literature. There are specific guidelines for the formatting of the title page, header, footer, and citation style.
• Chicago Manual of Style: This is one of the most commonly used formatting styles. It is often used for subjects in humanities and social sciences, but also commonly found in a newspaper title. This includes guidelines for formatting the title page, end notes, footnotes, publication title, article citation, and bibliography.
• Harvard Style: Harvard style is commonly used for social sciences and provides specific guidelines for formatting different sections of the pages, including publication title, summary page, website publisher, and more.

To ensure that your article review paper is properly formatted and meets the requirements, it is crucial to adhere to the specific guidelines for the formatting style you are using. This helps you write a good article review.

• Free unlimited checks
• All common file formats
• Accurate results
• Intuitive interface

How To Write An Article Review

There are several steps that must be followed when you are starting to review articles. You need to follow these to make sure that your thoughts are organized properly. In this way, you can present your ideas in a more concise and clear manner. Here are some tips on how to start an article review and how to cater to each writing stage.

• Read the Article Closely: Even before you start to write an article review, it’s important to make sure that you have read the specific article thoroughly. Write down the central points and all the supporting ideas. It’s important also to note any questions or comments that you have about the content.
• Identify the Thesis: Make sure that you understand the author’s main points, and identify the main thesis of the article. This will help you focus on your review and ensure that you are addressing all of the key points.
• Formulate an Introduction: The piece should start with an introduction that has all the necessary background information, possibly in the first paragraph or in the first few paragraphs. This can include a brief summary of the important points or an explanation of the importance.
• Summarize the Article : Summarize the main points when you review the article, and make sure that you include all supporting elements of the author’s thesis.
• Start with Personal Critique : Now is the time to include a personal opinion on the research article or the journal article review. Start with evaluating all the strengths and weaknesses of the reviewed article. Discuss all of the flaws that you found in the author’s evidence and reasoning. Also, point out whether the conclusion provided by the author was well presented or not.
• Add Personal Perspective: Offer your perspective on the original article, do you agree or disagree with the ideas that the article supports or not. Your critical review, in your own words, is an essential part of a good review. Make sure you address all unanswered questions in your review.
• Conclude the Article Review : In this section of the writing process, you need to be very careful and wrap up the whole discussion in a coherent manner. This is should summarize all the main points and offer an overall assessment.

Make sure to stay impartial and provide proof to back up your assessment. By adhering to these guidelines, you can create a reflective and well-structured article review.

Article Review Outline

Here is a basic, detailed outline for an article review you should be aware of as a pre-writing process if you are wondering how to write an article review.

Introduction

• Introduce the article that you are reviewing (author name, publication date, title, etc.) Now provide an overview of the article’s main topic

Summary section

• Summarize the key points in the article as well as any arguments Identify the findings and conclusion

Critical Review

• Assess and evaluate the positive aspects and the drawbacks
• Discuss if the authors arguments were verified by the evidence of the article
• Identify if the text provides substantial information for any future paper or further research
• Assess any gaps in the arguments
• Restate the thesis statement
• Provide a summary for all sections
• Write any recommendations and thoughts that you have on the article
• Never forget to add and cite any references that you used in your article

10 Tips for Writing an Article Review

Have you ever written such an assignment? If not, study the helpful tips for composing a paper. If you follow the recommendations provided here, the process of writing a summary of the article won’t be so time-consuming, and you will be able to write an article in the most effective manner.

The guidelines below will help to make the process of preparing a paper much more productive. Let’s get started!

• Check what kind of information your work should contain. After answering the key question “What is an article review?” you should learn how to structure it the right way. To succeed, you need to know what your work should be based on. An analysis with insightful observations is a must for your piece of writing.
• Identify the central idea: In your first reading, focus on the overall impression. Gather ideas about what the writer wants to tell, and consider whether he or she managed to achieve it.
• Look up unfamiliar terms. Don’t know what certain words and expressions mean? Highlight them, and don’t forget to check what they mean with a reliable source of information.
• Highlight the most important ideas. If you are reading it a second time, use a highlighter to highlight the points that are most important to understanding the passage.
• Write an outline. A well-written outline will make your life a lot easier. All your thoughts will be grouped. Detailed planning helps not to miss anything important. Think about the questions you should answer when writing.
• Brainstorm headline ideas. When choosing a project, remember: it should reflect the main idea. Make it bold and concise.
• Check an article review format example. You should check that you know how to cite an article properly. Note that citation rules are different in APA and MLA formats. Ask your teacher which one to prioritize.
• Write a good introduction. Use only one short paragraph to state the central idea of ​​the work. Emphasize the author’s key concepts and arguments. Add the thesis at the end of the Introduction.
• Write in a formal style. Use the third person, remembering that this assignment should be written in a formal academic writing style.
• Wrap up, offer your critique, and close. Give your opinion on whether the author achieved his goals. Mention the shortcomings of the job, if any, and highlight its strengths.

If you have checked the tips and you still doubt whether you have all the necessary skills and time to prepare this kind of educational work, follow one more tip that guarantees 100% success- ask for professional assistance by asking the custom writing service PapersOwl to craft your paper instead of you. Just submit an order online and get the paper completed by experts.

An Article Review Example

If you have a task to prepare an analysis of a certain piece of literature, have a look at the article review sample. There is an article review example for you to have a clear picture of what it must look like.

Journal Article on Ayn Rand’s Works Review Example

“The purpose of the article is to consider the features of the poetics of Ayn Rand’s novels “Atlas Shrugged,” “We the living,” and “The Fountainhead.” In the analysis of the novels, the structural-semantic and the method of comparative analysis were used.

With the help of these methods, genre features of the novels were revealed, and a single conflict and a cyclic hero were identified.

In-depth reading allows us to more fully reveal the worldview of the author reflected in the novels. It becomes easier to understand the essence of the author’s ideas about the connection between being and consciousness, embodied in cyclic ideas and images of plot twists and heroes. The author did a good job highlighting the strong points of the works and mentioning the reasons for the obvious success of Ayn Rand.“

You can also search for other relevant article review examples before you start.

In conclusion, article reviews play an important role in evaluating and analyzing different scholarly articles. Writing a review requires critical thinking skills and a deep understanding of the article’s content, style, and structure. It is crucial to identify the type of article review and follow the specific guidelines for formatting style provided by the instructor or professor.

The process of writing an article review requires several steps, such as reading the article attentively, identifying the thesis, and formulating an introduction. By following the tips and examples provided in this article, students can write a worthy review that demonstrates their ability to evaluate and critique another writer’s work.

Learning how to write an article review is a critical skill for students and professionals alike. Before diving into the nitty-gritty of reviewing an article, it’s important to understand what an article review is and the elements it should include. An article review is an assessment of a piece of writing that summarizes and evaluates a work. To complete a quality article review, the author should consider the text’s purpose and content, its organization, the author’s style, and how the article fits into a larger conversation. But if you don’t have the time to do all of this work, you can always purchase a literature review from Papers Owl .

Readers also enjoyed

WHY WAIT? PLACE AN ORDER RIGHT NOW!

Just fill out the form, press the button, and have no worries!

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy.

The Tech Edvocate

• Advertisement
• Home Page Five (No Sidebar)
• Home Page Four
• Home Page Three
• Home Page Two
• Icons [No Sidebar]
• Left Sidbear Page
• Lynch Educational Consulting
• My Speaking Page
• Newsletter Sign Up Confirmation
• Newsletter Unsubscription
• Page Example
• Privacy Policy
• Protected Content
• Request a Product Review
• Shortcodes Examples
• Terms and Conditions
• The Edvocate
• The Tech Edvocate Product Guide
• Write For Us
• Dr. Lynch’s Personal Website
• The Edvocate Podcast
• Assistive Technology
• Child Development Tech
• Early Childhood & K-12 EdTech
• EdTech Futures
• EdTech News
• EdTech Policy & Reform
• EdTech Startups & Businesses
• Higher Education EdTech
• Online Learning & eLearning
• Parent & Family Tech
• Personalized Learning
• Product Reviews
• Tech Edvocate Awards
• School Ratings

Silent Reading and Oral Reading: Everything You Need to Know

Creative writing: everything you need to know, what is dropbox paper how to use it, reading disability: everything you need to know, product review of good organics’ cbd sleep gummies, product review of the bass 13 wireless headphones, milestones in the learning process: everything you need to know, independent reading opportunities: everything you need to know, product review of the tineco floor one s7 steam, a product review of stormbox flow, how to write an article review (with sample reviews)  .

An article review is a critical evaluation of a scholarly or scientific piece, which aims to summarize its main ideas, assess its contributions, and provide constructive feedback. A well-written review not only benefits the author of the article under scrutiny but also serves as a valuable resource for fellow researchers and scholars. Follow these steps to create an effective and informative article review:

1. Understand the purpose: Before diving into the article, it is important to understand the intent of writing a review. This helps in focusing your thoughts, directing your analysis, and ensuring your review adds value to the academic community.

2. Read the article thoroughly: Carefully read the article multiple times to get a complete understanding of its content, arguments, and conclusions. As you read, take notes on key points, supporting evidence, and any areas that require further exploration or clarification.

3. Summarize the main ideas: In your review’s introduction, briefly outline the primary themes and arguments presented by the author(s). Keep it concise but sufficiently informative so that readers can quickly grasp the essence of the article.

4. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses: In subsequent paragraphs, assess the strengths and limitations of the article based on factors such as methodology, quality of evidence presented, coherence of arguments, and alignment with existing literature in the field. Be fair and objective while providing your critique.

5. Discuss any implications: Deliberate on how this particular piece contributes to or challenges existing knowledge in its discipline. You may also discuss potential improvements for future research or explore real-world applications stemming from this study.

6. Provide recommendations: Finally, offer suggestions for both the author(s) and readers regarding how they can further build on this work or apply its findings in practice.

7. Proofread and revise: Once your initial draft is complete, go through it carefully for clarity, accuracy, and coherence. Revise as necessary, ensuring your review is both informative and engaging for readers.

Sample Review:

A Critical Review of “The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health”

Introduction:

“The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health” is a timely article which investigates the relationship between social media usage and psychological well-being. The authors present compelling evidence to support their argument that excessive use of social media can result in decreased self-esteem, increased anxiety, and a negative impact on interpersonal relationships.

Strengths and weaknesses:

One of the strengths of this article lies in its well-structured methodology utilizing a variety of sources, including quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews. This approach provides a comprehensive view of the topic, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the effects of social media on mental health. However, it would have been beneficial if the authors included a larger sample size to increase the reliability of their conclusions. Additionally, exploring how different platforms may influence mental health differently could have added depth to the analysis.

Implications:

The findings in this article contribute significantly to ongoing debates surrounding the psychological implications of social media use. It highlights the potential dangers that excessive engagement with online platforms may pose to one’s mental well-being and encourages further research into interventions that could mitigate these risks. The study also offers an opportunity for educators and policy-makers to take note and develop strategies to foster healthier online behavior.

Recommendations:

Future researchers should consider investigating how specific social media platforms impact mental health outcomes, as this could lead to more targeted interventions. For practitioners, implementing educational programs aimed at promoting healthy online habits may be beneficial in mitigating the potential negative consequences associated with excessive social media use.

Conclusion:

Overall, “The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health” is an important and informative piece that raises awareness about a pressing issue in today’s digital age. Given its minor limitations, it provides valuable

3 Ways to Make a Mini Greenhouse ...

3 ways to teach yourself to play ....

Matthew Lynch

Related articles more from author.

How to Adjust a Garage Door Spring

3 Simple Ways to Shrink Jackets

3 Ways to Stabilize Whipped Cream

4 Ways to Reference Essays

How to Be a Perfect Daughter

3 Ways to Use Bitmoji with Friends

How to Write an Article Review: Tips and Examples

Did you know that article reviews are not just academic exercises but also a valuable skill in today's information age? In a world inundated with content, being able to dissect and evaluate articles critically can help you separate the wheat from the chaff. Whether you're a student aiming to excel in your coursework or a professional looking to stay well-informed, mastering the art of writing article reviews is an invaluable skill.

Short Description

In this article, our research paper writing service experts will start by unraveling the concept of article reviews and discussing the various types. You'll also gain insights into the art of formatting your review effectively. To ensure you're well-prepared, we'll take you through the pre-writing process, offering tips on setting the stage for your review. But it doesn't stop there. You'll find a practical example of an article review to help you grasp the concepts in action. To complete your journey, we'll guide you through the post-writing process, equipping you with essential proofreading techniques to ensure your work shines with clarity and precision!

What Is an Article Review: Grasping the Concept 

A review article is a type of professional paper writing that demands a high level of in-depth analysis and a well-structured presentation of arguments. It is a critical, constructive evaluation of literature in a particular field through summary, classification, analysis, and comparison.

If you write a scientific review, you have to use database searches to portray the research. Your primary goal is to summarize everything and present a clear understanding of the topic you've been working on.

Writing Involves:

• Summarization, classification, analysis, critiques, and comparison.
• The analysis, evaluation, and comparison require the use of theories, ideas, and research relevant to the subject area of the article.
• It is also worth nothing if a review does not introduce new information, but instead presents a response to another writer's work.
• Check out other samples to gain a better understanding of how to review the article.

Types of Review

When it comes to article reviews, there's more than one way to approach the task. Understanding the various types of reviews is like having a versatile toolkit at your disposal. In this section, we'll walk you through the different dimensions of review types, each offering a unique perspective and purpose. Whether you're dissecting a scholarly article, critiquing a piece of literature, or evaluating a product, you'll discover the diverse landscape of article reviews and how to navigate it effectively.

Journal Article Review

Just like other types of reviews, a journal article review assesses the merits and shortcomings of a published work. To illustrate, consider a review of an academic paper on climate change, where the writer meticulously analyzes and interprets the article's significance within the context of environmental science.

Research Article Review

Distinguished by its focus on research methodologies, a research article review scrutinizes the techniques used in a study and evaluates them in light of the subsequent analysis and critique. For instance, when reviewing a research article on the effects of a new drug, the reviewer would delve into the methods employed to gather data and assess their reliability.

Science Article Review

In the realm of scientific literature, a science article review encompasses a wide array of subjects. Scientific publications often provide extensive background information, which can be instrumental in conducting a comprehensive analysis. For example, when reviewing an article about the latest breakthroughs in genetics, the reviewer may draw upon the background knowledge provided to facilitate a more in-depth evaluation of the publication.

Need a Hand From Professionals?

Address to Our Writers and Get Assistance in Any Questions!

Formatting an Article Review

The format of the article should always adhere to the citation style required by your professor. If you're not sure, seek clarification on the preferred format and ask him to clarify several other pointers to complete the formatting of an article review adequately.

How Many Publications Should You Review?

• In what format should you cite your articles (MLA, APA, ASA, Chicago, etc.)?
• What length should your review be?
• Should you include a summary, critique, or personal opinion in your assignment?
• Do you need to call attention to a theme or central idea within the articles?
• Does your instructor require background information?

When you know the answers to these questions, you may start writing your assignment. Below are examples of MLA and APA formats, as those are the two most common citation styles.

Using the APA Format

Articles appear most commonly in academic journals, newspapers, and websites. If you write an article review in the APA format, you will need to write bibliographical entries for the sources you use:

• Web : Author [last name], A.A [first and middle initial]. (Year, Month, Date of Publication). Title. Retrieved from {link}
• Journal : Author [last name], A.A [first and middle initial]. (Publication Year). Publication Title. Periodical Title, Volume(Issue), pp.-pp.
• Newspaper : Author [last name], A.A [first and middle initial]. (Year, Month, Date of Publication). Publication Title. Magazine Title, pp. xx-xx.

Using MLA Format

• Web : Last, First Middle Initial. “Publication Title.” Website Title. Website Publisher, Date Month Year Published. Web. Date Month Year Accessed.
• Newspaper : Last, First M. “Publication Title.” Newspaper Title [City] Date, Month, Year Published: Page(s). Print.
• Journal : Last, First M. “Publication Title.” Journal Title Series Volume. Issue (Year Published): Page(s). Database Name. Web. Date Month Year Accessed.

Enhance your writing effortlessly with EssayPro.com , where you can order an article review or any other writing task. Our team of expert writers specializes in various fields, ensuring your work is not just summarized, but deeply analyzed and professionally presented. Ideal for students and professionals alike, EssayPro offers top-notch writing assistance tailored to your needs. Elevate your writing today with our skilled team at your article review writing service !

The Pre-Writing Process

Facing this task for the first time can really get confusing and can leave you unsure of where to begin. To create a top-notch article review, start with a few preparatory steps. Here are the two main stages from our dissertation services to get you started:

Step 1: Define the right organization for your review. Knowing the future setup of your paper will help you define how you should read the article. Here are the steps to follow:

• Summarize the article — seek out the main points, ideas, claims, and general information presented in the article.
• Define the positive points — identify the strong aspects, ideas, and insightful observations the author has made.
• Find the gaps —- determine whether or not the author has any contradictions, gaps, or inconsistencies in the article and evaluate whether or not he or she used a sufficient amount of arguments and information to support his or her ideas.
• Identify unanswered questions — finally, identify if there are any questions left unanswered after reading the piece.

Step 2: Move on and review the article. Here is a small and simple guide to help you do it right:

• Start off by looking at and assessing the title of the piece, its abstract, introductory part, headings and subheadings, opening sentences in its paragraphs, and its conclusion.
• First, read only the beginning and the ending of the piece (introduction and conclusion). These are the parts where authors include all of their key arguments and points. Therefore, if you start with reading these parts, it will give you a good sense of the author's main points.
• Finally, read the article fully.

These three steps make up most of the prewriting process. After you are done with them, you can move on to writing your own review—and we are going to guide you through the writing process as well.

Outline and Template

As you progress with reading your article, organize your thoughts into coherent sections in an outline. As you read, jot down important facts, contributions, or contradictions. Identify the shortcomings and strengths of your publication. Begin to map your outline accordingly.

If your professor does not want a summary section or a personal critique section, then you must alleviate those parts from your writing. Much like other assignments, an article review must contain an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Thus, you might consider dividing your outline according to these sections as well as subheadings within the body. If you find yourself troubled with the pre-writing and the brainstorming process for this assignment, seek out a sample outline.

Your custom essay must contain these constituent parts:

• Pre-Title Page - Before diving into your review, start with essential details: article type, publication title, and author names with affiliations (position, department, institution, location, and email). Include corresponding author info if needed.
• Running Head - In APA format, use a concise title (under 40 characters) to ensure consistent formatting.
• Summary Page - Optional but useful. Summarize the article in 800 words, covering background, purpose, results, and methodology, avoiding verbatim text or references.
• Title Page - Include the full title, a 250-word abstract, and 4-6 keywords for discoverability.
• Introduction - Set the stage with an engaging overview of the article.
• Body - Organize your analysis with headings and subheadings.
• Works Cited/References - Properly cite all sources used in your review.
• Optional Suggested Reading Page - If permitted, suggest further readings for in-depth exploration.
• Tables and Figure Legends (if instructed by the professor) - Include visuals when requested by your professor for clarity.

Example of an Article Review

You might wonder why we've dedicated a section of this article to discuss an article review sample. Not everyone may realize it, but examining multiple well-constructed examples of review articles is a crucial step in the writing process. In the following section, our essay writing service experts will explain why.

Looking through relevant article review examples can be beneficial for you in the following ways:

• To get you introduced to the key works of experts in your field.
• To help you identify the key people engaged in a particular field of science.
• To help you define what significant discoveries and advances were made in your field.
• To help you unveil the major gaps within the existing knowledge of your field—which contributes to finding fresh solutions.
• To help you find solid references and arguments for your own review.
• To help you generate some ideas about any further field of research.
• To help you gain a better understanding of the area and become an expert in this specific field.
• To get a clear idea of how to write a good review.

View Our Writer’s Sample Before Crafting Your Own!

Why Have There Been No Great Female Artists?

Steps for Writing an Article Review

Here is a guide with critique paper format on how to write a review paper:

Step 1: Write the Title

First of all, you need to write a title that reflects the main focus of your work. Respectively, the title can be either interrogative, descriptive, or declarative.

Step 2: Cite the Article

Next, create a proper citation for the reviewed article and input it following the title. At this step, the most important thing to keep in mind is the style of citation specified by your instructor in the requirements for the paper. For example, an article citation in the MLA style should look as follows:

Author's last and first name. "The title of the article." Journal's title and issue(publication date): page(s). Print

Abraham John. "The World of Dreams." Virginia Quarterly 60.2(1991): 125-67. Print.

Step 3: Article Identification

After your citation, you need to include the identification of your reviewed article:

• Title of the article
• Title of the journal
• Year of publication

All of this information should be included in the first paragraph of your paper.

The report "Poverty increases school drop-outs" was written by Brian Faith – a Health officer – in 2000.

Step 4: Introduction

Your organization in an assignment like this is of the utmost importance. Before embarking on your writing process, you should outline your assignment or use an article review template to organize your thoughts coherently.

• If you are wondering how to start an article review, begin with an introduction that mentions the article and your thesis for the review.
• Follow up with a summary of the main points of the article.
• Highlight the positive aspects and facts presented in the publication.
• Critique the publication by identifying gaps, contradictions, disparities in the text, and unanswered questions.

Step 5: Summarize the Article

Make a summary of the article by revisiting what the author has written about. Note any relevant facts and findings from the article. Include the author's conclusions in this section.

Step 6: Critique It

Present the strengths and weaknesses you have found in the publication. Highlight the knowledge that the author has contributed to the field. Also, write about any gaps and/or contradictions you have found in the article. Take a standpoint of either supporting or not supporting the author's assertions, but back up your arguments with facts and relevant theories that are pertinent to that area of knowledge. Rubrics and templates can also be used to evaluate and grade the person who wrote the article.

Step 7: Craft a Conclusion

In this section, revisit the critical points of your piece, your findings in the article, and your critique. Also, write about the accuracy, validity, and relevance of the results of the article review. Present a way forward for future research in the field of study. Before submitting your article, keep these pointers in mind:

• As you read the article, highlight the key points. This will help you pinpoint the article's main argument and the evidence that they used to support that argument.
• While you write your review, use evidence from your sources to make a point. This is best done using direct quotations.
• Select quotes and supporting evidence adequately and use direct quotations sparingly. Take time to analyze the article adequately.
• Every time you reference a publication or use a direct quotation, use a parenthetical citation to avoid accidentally plagiarizing your article.
• Re-read your piece a day after you finish writing it. This will help you to spot grammar mistakes and to notice any flaws in your organization.
• Use a spell-checker and get a second opinion on your paper.

The Post-Writing Process: Proofread Your Work

Finally, when all of the parts of your article review are set and ready, you have one last thing to take care of — proofreading. Although students often neglect this step, proofreading is a vital part of the writing process and will help you polish your paper to ensure that there are no mistakes or inconsistencies.

To proofread your paper properly, start by reading it fully and checking the following points:

• Punctuation
• Other mistakes

Afterward, take a moment to check for any unnecessary information in your paper and, if found, consider removing it to streamline your content. Finally, double-check that you've covered at least 3-4 key points in your discussion.

And remember, if you ever need help with proofreading, rewriting your essay, or even want to buy essay , our friendly team is always here to assist you.

Need an Article REVIEW WRITTEN?

Just send us the requirements to your paper and watch one of our writers crafting an original paper for you.

What Is A Review Article?

How to write an article review, how to write an article review in apa format.

Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

How to Write an Effective Article Review – Updated 2024 Guide

Purpose of an Article Review

Importance of writing an effective review, read the article thoroughly, identify the main arguments, take notes on key points.

• Evaluate the Author's Credibility
• Assess the Article's Structure and Organization

Examine the Use of Evidence and Examples

Write a concise summary of the article.

• Include the Article's Main Points

Avoid Personal Opinions in the Summary

Identify strengths and weaknesses.

• Evaluate the Article's Logic and Reasoning
• Discuss the Article's Impact and Relevance

Start with an Engaging Introduction

Provide a brief overview of the article.

• Critique the Article's Strengths and Weaknesses

Offer Suggestions for Improvement

Conclude with a summary and recommendation, check for grammar and spelling errors, ensure clarity and coherence of writing, revise for proper formatting and citations, review the overall structure and flow, make final edits and revisions, submit the article review.

Writing an article review can be a challenging task, but it is an essential skill for academics, researchers, and anyone who needs to critically evaluate published work. An article review is a written piece that provides a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of a scholarly article, book, or other published material. It goes beyond a simple summary by offering a critical assessment of the work’s strengths, weaknesses, and overall contribution to the field. In this blog post, we will explore the steps involved in writing an effective article review.

        I.            Introduction

The primary purpose of an article review is to provide a critical evaluation of a published work. It serves as a means of engaging with the ideas and arguments presented by the author(s) and assessing their validity, significance, and potential impact on the field. An article review allows the reviewer to analyze the work’s merits, identify its limitations, and offer constructive feedback or suggestions for further research or discussion.

Writing an effective article review is crucial for several reasons. First, it demonstrates the reviewer’s ability to critically analyze and synthesize complex information. This skill is highly valued in academic and professional settings, where critical thinking and analytical skills are essential . Second, article reviews contribute to the ongoing scholarly discourse by providing informed perspectives and critiques that can shape future research and discussions. Finally, well-written article reviews can help readers determine whether a particular work is worth reading or exploring further, making them valuable resources for researchers and scholars in the field.

     II.            Understanding the Article

The first step in writing an article review is to read the article carefully and thoroughly. This may seem obvious, but it is crucial to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the work before attempting to critique it. During the initial reading, focus on grasping the main arguments, key points, and the overall structure of the article. Take note of any unfamiliar concepts, terminology, or references that may require further research or clarification.

As you read the article, pay close attention to the author’s central arguments or thesis statements. Identify the main claims, hypotheses, or research questions that the article attempts to address. Understanding the core arguments is essential for evaluating the effectiveness of the author’s reasoning and the validity of their conclusions.

While reading the article, it is helpful to take notes on the key points, supporting evidence, and any critical or thought-provoking ideas presented by the author(s). These notes will serve as a reference when you begin writing the review and will help you organize your thoughts and critique more effectively.

  III.            Analyzing the Article

Evaluate the author’s credibility.

When analyzing an article, it is essential to consider the author’s credibility and expertise in the field. Research the author’s background, qualifications, and previous publications to assess their authority on the subject matter. This information can provide valuable context and help you determine the weight and reliability of the arguments presented in the article.

Assess the Article’s Structure and Organization

Evaluate the overall structure and organization of the article. Is the information presented in a logical and coherent manner? Does the article follow a clear progression from introduction to conclusion? Assessing the structure can help you determine whether the author has effectively communicated their ideas and arguments.

Critically examine the evidence and examples used by the author(s) to support their arguments. Are the sources credible and up-to-date? Are the examples relevant and well-chosen? Evaluating the quality and appropriateness of the evidence can help you assess the strength and validity of the author’s claims.

  IV.            Summarizing the Article

Before delving into your critique, it is essential to provide a concise summary of the article . This summary should briefly outline the article’s main arguments, key points, and conclusions. The goal is to give the reader a clear understanding of the article’s content without adding any personal opinions or critiques at this stage.

Include the Article’s Main Points

In your summary, be sure to include the article’s main points and the evidence or examples used to support them. This will help the reader understand the context and the basis for the author’s arguments, which is crucial for your subsequent critique.

When summarizing the article, it is important to remain objective and avoid injecting personal opinions or critiques. The summary should be a neutral representation of the article’s content, leaving the analysis and evaluation for the critique section.

    V.            Critiquing the Article

After providing a summary, it is time to analyze and critique the article. Begin by identifying the article’s strengths and weaknesses . Strengths may include well-reasoned arguments, thorough research, innovative ideas, or significant contributions to the field. Weaknesses could include flawed logic, lack of evidence, oversimplification of complex issues, or failure to address counterarguments.

Evaluate the Article’s Logic and Reasoning

Carefully evaluate the author’s logic and reasoning throughout the article. Are the arguments well-supported and logically consistent? Do the conclusions follow naturally from the evidence presented? Identify any logical fallacies, contradictions, or gaps in reasoning that may undermine the author’s arguments.

Discuss the Article’s Impact and Relevance

Consider the article’s potential impact and relevance within the broader context of the field. How does it contribute to existing knowledge or challenge prevailing theories? Does it open up new avenues for research or discussion? Discussing the article’s impact and relevance can help readers understand its significance and importance.

  VI.            Writing the Article Review

Begin your article review with an engaging introduction that captures the reader’s attention and provides context for the review. Briefly introduce the article, its author(s), and the main topic or research area. You can also include a concise thesis statement that summarizes your overall evaluation or critique of the article.

After the introduction, provide a brief overview or summary of the article. This should be a condensed version of the summary you wrote earlier, highlighting the article’s main arguments, key points, and conclusions. Keep this section concise and focused, as the main critique will follow.

Critique the Article’s Strengths and Weaknesses

In the critique section, present your analysis of the article’s strengths and weaknesses. Discuss the author’s use of evidence, the validity of their arguments, and the overall quality of their reasoning. Support your critique with specific examples and references from the article. Be sure to provide balanced criticism, acknowledging both the positive and negative aspects of the work.

In addition to critiquing the article , consider offering constructive suggestions for improvement. These suggestions could address areas where the author’s arguments were weak or where additional research or discussion is needed. Your suggestions should be specific and actionable, aimed at enhancing the quality and impact of the work.

Conclude your article review by summarizing your main points and providing an overall recommendation or final assessment of the article. This recommendation could be to read or not read the article, to use it as a reference in a specific context, or to consider it as a starting point for further research or discussion.

VII.            Editing and Proofreading

After you have completed your initial draft, it is essential to carefully proofread and edit your work. Check for any grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, or typos that may have been overlooked during the writing process. These small errors can detract from the overall quality and professionalism of your review.

In addition to checking for mechanical errors , ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and coherent. Review your sentences and paragraphs for clarity, and make sure that your ideas flow logically from one point to the next. Avoid ambiguous or confusing language that could make your critique difficult to understand.

Depending on the specific requirements or guidelines for your article review, you may need to revise your work to ensure proper formatting and citation styles. Check that you have correctly cited any references or quotes from the article you are reviewing, and that your formatting (e.g., headings, spacing, font) adheres to the specified guidelines.

VIII.            Finalizing the Review

Before finalizing your article review , take a step back and review the overall structure and flow of your writing. Ensure that your introduction effectively sets the stage for your critique, and that your body paragraphs logically build upon one another, leading to a well-supported conclusion.

During this final review, consider whether your critique is balanced and objective, presenting both the strengths and weaknesses of the article in a fair and impartial manner. Also, check that you have provided sufficient evidence and examples to support your analysis and that your arguments are clearly articulated.

After reviewing the overall structure and flow, make any necessary final edits and revisions to your article review. This might involve reorganizing or reworking certain sections for better clarity, strengthening your arguments with additional evidence, or refining your writing style for greater impact.

Pay close attention to your choice of words and tone, ensuring that your critique remains respectful and professional, even when addressing the article’s shortcomings. Remember, the goal is to provide a constructive and well-reasoned analysis, not to disparage or attack the author’s work.

Once you are satisfied with your article review, it is time to submit it according to the appropriate guidelines or requirements . This might involve formatting your work in a specific style, adhering to word count or page limits, or following specific submission procedures.

If your article review is intended for publication, be sure to follow the guidelines provided by the journal or publication outlet. This may include submitting your work through an online portal, adhering to specific formatting requirements, or including additional materials such as an abstract or author biography.

Congratulations! By following these steps, you have successfully written a comprehensive and effective article review. Remember, the process of critically evaluating published work is an essential skill that not only demonstrates your ability to analyze and synthesize complex information but also contributes to the ongoing scholarly discourse within your field.

Writing an article review can be a challenging task, but it is a valuable exercise that sharpens your critical thinking, analytical, and communication skills. By carefully reading and understanding the article, assessing its strengths and weaknesses, and providing a well-reasoned critique, you contribute to the advancement of knowledge and foster a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

So, embrace the opportunity to write article reviews, and use each one as a platform to engage with the ideas and arguments presented by scholars and researchers. Your thoughtful and insightful critiques can shape future research, inspire new perspectives, and ultimately drive progress within your field of study.

• RESEARCH PAPER FOR SALE
• RESEARCH PAPER WRITER
• RESEARCH PROPOSAL WRITING SERVICES
• SCHOLARSHIP ESSAY HELP
• SPEECH HELP
• STATISTICS HOMEWORK HELP
• TERM PAPER WRITING HELP
• THESIS EDITING SERVICES
• THESIS PROPOSAL WRITING SERVICE
• TRIGONOMETRY HOMEWORK HELP
• ADMISSION ESSAY WRITING HELP
• BIOLOGY PAPER WRITING SERVICE
• BOOK REPORT WRITING HELP
• BUY BOOK REVIEW
• BUY COURSEWORKS
• BUY DISCUSSION POST
• BUY TERM PAPER
• CAPSTONE PROJECT WRITING SERVICE
• COURSEWORK WRITING SERVICE
• CRITIQUE MY ESSAY
• CUSTOM RESEARCH PAPER
• CUSTOMER CONDUCT
• DISSERTATION EDITING SERVICE
• DISSERTATION WRITERS
• DO MY DISSERTATION FOR ME
• DO MY POWERPOINT PRESENTATION
• EDIT MY PAPER
• English Research Paper Writing Service
• ENGLISH RESEARCH PAPER WRITING SERVICE
• ESSAY WRITING HELP
• ESSAYS FOR SALE
• GRADUATE PAPER WRITING SERVICE
• LAW ASSIGNMENT WRITING HELP
• MARKETING ASSIGNMENT WRITING HELP
• NON-PLAGIARIZED ESSAYS
• NURSING ASSIGNMENT HELP
• PAY FOR COURSEWORK
• PAY FOR ESSAYS
• PAY FOR LITERATURE REVIEW
• PAY FOR PAPERS
• PAY FOR RESEARCH PAPERS
• PERSONAL STATEMENT EDITING SERVICE
• PERSONAL STATEMENT WRITER
• PERSUASIVE ESSAY WRITING HELP
• PERSUASIVE ESSAY WRITING SERVICES
• PHD THESIS WRITING SERVICE
• PROOFREAD MY PAPER
• PSYCHOLOGY ESSAY WRITING SERVICES
• THESIS STATEMENT HELP
• WRITE MY ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR ME
• WRITE MY CASE STUDY
• WRITE MY DISCUSSION BOARD POST
• WRITE MY LAB REPORT

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

Open Google Slides Download PowerPoint

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved June 18, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, what is a theoretical framework | guide to organizing, what is a research methodology | steps & tips, how to write a research proposal | examples & templates, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

• Search Menu

Sign in through your institution

• Advance Articles
• Editor's Choice
• CME Reviews
• Best of 2021 collection
• Abbreviated Breast MRI Virtual Collection
• Contrast-enhanced Mammography Collection
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Accepted Papers Resource Guide
• About Journal of Breast Imaging
• About the Society of Breast Imaging
• Guidelines for Reviewers
• Resources for Reviewers and Authors
• Editorial Board
• Advertising Disclaimer
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

• < Previous

A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Review Article

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Manisha Bahl, A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Review Article, Journal of Breast Imaging , Volume 5, Issue 4, July/August 2023, Pages 480–485, https://doi.org/10.1093/jbi/wbad028

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Scientific review articles are comprehensive, focused reviews of the scientific literature written by subject matter experts. The task of writing a scientific review article can seem overwhelming; however, it can be managed by using an organized approach and devoting sufficient time to the process. The process involves selecting a topic about which the authors are knowledgeable and enthusiastic, conducting a literature search and critical analysis of the literature, and writing the article, which is composed of an abstract, introduction, body, and conclusion, with accompanying tables and figures. This article, which focuses on the narrative or traditional literature review, is intended to serve as a guide with practical steps for new writers. Tips for success are also discussed, including selecting a focused topic, maintaining objectivity and balance while writing, avoiding tedious data presentation in a laundry list format, moving from descriptions of the literature to critical analysis, avoiding simplistic conclusions, and budgeting time for the overall process.

• narrative discourse

Society of Breast Imaging members

Personal account.

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code
• Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card.

• Sign in with username/password
• Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Short-term Access

To purchase short-term access, please sign in to your personal account above.

Don't already have a personal account? Register

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to your Librarian
• Journals Career Network

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 2631-6129
• Print ISSN 2631-6110
• Copyright © 2024 Society of Breast Imaging
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

How to Write an Article Review: Template & Examples

An article review is an academic assignment that invites you to study a piece of academic research closely. Then, you should present its summary and critically evaluate it using the knowledge you’ve gained in class and during your independent study. If you get such a task at college or university, you shouldn’t confuse it with a response paper, which is a distinct assignment with other purposes (we’ll talk about it in detail below).

In this article, prepared by Custom-Writing experts, you’ll find:

• the intricacies of article review writing;
• the difference between an article review and similar assignments;
• a step-by-step algorithm for review composition;
• a couple of samples to guide you throughout the writing process.

So, if you wish to study our article review example and discover helpful writing tips, keep reading.

❓ What Is an Article Review?

• ✍️ Writing Steps

📑 Article Review Format

🔗 references.

An article review is an academic paper that summarizes and critically evaluates the information presented in your selected article.

The first thing you should note when approaching the task of an article review is that not every article is suitable for this assignment. Let’s have a look at the variety of articles to understand what you can choose from.

Popular Vs. Scholarly Articles

In most cases, you’ll be required to review a scholarly, peer-reviewed article – one composed in compliance with rigorous academic standards. Yet, the Web is also full of popular articles that don’t present original scientific value and shouldn’t be selected for a review.

Not sure how to distinguish these two types? Here is a comparative table to help you out.

Article Review vs. Response Paper

Now, let’s consider the difference between an article review and a response paper:

• If you’re assigned to critique a scholarly article , you will need to compose an article review .
• If your subject of analysis is a popular article , you can respond to it with a well-crafted response paper .

The reason for such distinctions is the quality and structure of these two article types. Peer-reviewed, scholarly articles have clear-cut quality criteria, allowing you to conduct and present a structured assessment of the assigned material. Popular magazines have loose or non-existent quality criteria and don’t offer an opportunity for structured evaluation. So, they are only fit for a subjective response, in which you can summarize your reactions and emotions related to the reading material.

All in all, you can structure your response assignments as outlined in the tips below.

✍️ How to Write an Article Review: Step by Step

Here is a tried and tested algorithm for article review writing from our experts. We’ll consider only the critical review variety of this academic assignment. So, let’s get down to the stages you need to cover to get a stellar review.

Read the Article

As with any reviews, reports, and critiques, you must first familiarize yourself with the assigned material. It’s impossible to review something you haven’t read, so set some time for close, careful reading of the article to identify:

• The author’s main points and message.
• The arguments they use to prove their points.
• The methodology they use to approach the subject.

In terms of research type, your article will usually belong to one of three types explained below.

Summarize the Article

Now that you’ve read the text and have a general impression of the content, it’s time to summarize it for your readers. Look into the article’s text closely to determine:

• The thesis statement, or general message of the author.
• Research question, purpose, and context of research.
• Supporting points for the author’s assumptions and claims.
• Major findings and supporting evidence.

As you study the article thoroughly, make notes on the margins or write these elements out on a sheet of paper. You can also apply a different technique: read the text section by section and formulate its gist in one phrase or sentence. Once you’re done, you’ll have a summary skeleton in front of you.

Evaluate the Article

The next step of review is content evaluation. Keep in mind that various research types will require a different set of review questions. Here is a complete list of evaluation points you can include.

Write the Text

After completing the critical review stage, it’s time to compose your article review.

The format of this assignment is standard – you will have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The introduction should present your article and summarize its content. The body will contain a structured review according to all four dimensions covered in the previous section. The concluding part will typically recap all the main points you’ve identified during your assessment.

It is essential to note that an article review is, first of all, an academic assignment. Therefore, it should follow all rules and conventions of academic composition, such as:

• No contractions . Don’t use short forms, such as “don’t,” “can’t,” “I’ll,” etc. in academic writing. You need to spell out all those words.
• Formal language and style . Avoid conversational phrasing and words that you would naturally use in blog posts or informal communication. For example, don’t use words like “pretty,” “kind of,” and “like.”
• Third-person narrative . Academic reviews should be written from the third-person point of view, avoiding statements like “I think,” “in my opinion,” and so on.
• No conversational forms . You shouldn’t turn to your readers directly in the text by addressing them with the pronoun “you.” It’s vital to keep the narrative neutral and impersonal.
• Proper abbreviation use . Consult the list of correct abbreviations, like “e.g.” or “i.e.,” for use in your academic writing. If you use informal abbreviations like “FYA” or “f.i.,” your professor will reduce the grade.
• Complete sentences . Make sure your sentences contain the subject and the predicate; avoid shortened or sketch-form phrases suitable for a draft only.
• No conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence . Remember the FANBOYS rule – don’t start a sentence with words like “and” or “but.” They often seem the right way to build a coherent narrative, but academic writing rules disfavor such usage.
• No abbreviations or figures at the beginning of a sentence . Never start a sentence with a number — spell it out if you need to use it anyway. Besides, sentences should never begin with abbreviations like “e.g.”

Finally, a vital rule for an article review is properly formatting the citations. We’ll discuss the correct use of citation styles in the following section.

When composing an article review, keep these points in mind:

• Start with a full reference to the reviewed article so the reader can locate it quickly.
• Ensure correct formatting of in-text references.
• Provide a complete list of used external sources on the last page of the review – your bibliographical entries.

You’ll need to understand the rules of your chosen citation style to meet all these requirements. Below, we’ll discuss the two most common referencing styles – APA and MLA.

Article Review in APA

When you need to compose an article review in the APA format , here is the general bibliographical entry format you should use for journal articles on your reference page:

• Author’s last name, First initial. Middle initial. (Year of Publication). Name of the article. Name of the Journal, volume (number), pp. #-#. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Horigian, V. E., Schmidt, R. D., & Feaster, D. J. (2021). Loneliness, mental health, and substance use among US young adults during COVID-19. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 53 (1), pp. 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2020.1836435

Your in-text citations should follow the author-date format like this:

• If you paraphrase the source and mention the author in the text: According to Horigian et al. (2021), young adults experienced increased levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety during the pandemic.
• If you paraphrase the source and don’t mention the author in the text: Young adults experienced increased levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety during the pandemic (Horigian et al., 2021).
• If you quote the source: As Horigian et al. (2021) point out, there were “elevated levels of loneliness, depression, anxiety, alcohol use, and drug use among young adults during COVID-19” (p. 6).

Note that your in-text citations should include “et al.,” as in the examples above, if your article has 3 or more authors. If you have one or two authors, your in-text citations would look like this:

• One author: “According to Smith (2020), depression is…” or “Depression is … (Smith, 2020).”
• Two authors: “According to Smith and Brown (2020), anxiety means…” or “Anxiety means (Smith & Brown, 2020).”

Finally, in case you have to review a book or a website article, here are the general formats for citing these source types on your APA reference list.

Article Review in MLA

If your assignment requires MLA-format referencing, here’s the general format you should use for citing journal articles on your Works Cited page:

• Author’s last name, First name. “Title of an Article.” Title of the Journal , vol. #, no. #, year, pp. #-#.

Horigian, Viviana E., et al. “Loneliness, Mental Health, and Substance Use Among US Young Adults During COVID-19.” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs , vol. 53, no. 1, 2021, pp. 1-9.

In-text citations in the MLA format follow the author-page citation format and look like this:

• According to Horigian et al., young adults experienced increased levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety during the pandemic (6).
• Young adults experienced increased levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety during the pandemic (Horigian et al. 6).

Like in APA, the abbreviation “et al.” is only needed in MLA if your article has 3 or more authors.

If you need to cite a book or a website page, here are the general MLA formats for these types of sources.

✅ Article Review Template

Here is a handy, universal article review template to help you move on with any review assignment. We’ve tried to make it as generic as possible to guide you in the academic process.

📝 Article Review Examples

The theory is good, but practice is even better. Thus, we’ve created three brief examples to show you how to write an article review. You can study the full-text samples by following the links.

📃 Men, Women, & Money

This article review examines a famous piece, “Men, Women & Money – How the Sexes Differ with Their Finances,” published by Amy Livingston in 2020. The author of this article claims that men generally spend more money than women. She makes this conclusion from a close analysis of gender-specific expenditures across five main categories: food, clothing, cars, entertainment, and general spending patterns. Livingston also looks at men’s approach to saving to argue that counter to the common perception of women’s light-hearted attitude to money, men are those who spend more on average.

📃 When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism

This is a review of Jonathan Heidt’s 2016 article titled “When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism,” written as an advocacy of right-wing populism rising in many Western states. The author illustrates the case with the election of Donald Trump as the US President and the rise of right-wing rhetoric in many Western countries. These examples show how nationalist sentiment represents a reaction to global immigration and a failure of globalization.

📃 Sleep Deprivation

This is a review of the American Heart Association’s article titled “The Dangers of Sleep Deprivation.” It discusses how the national organization concerned with the American population’s cardiovascular health links the lack of high-quality sleep to far-reaching health consequences. The organization’s experts reveal how a consistent lack of sleep leads to Alzheimer’s disease development, obesity, type 2 diabetes, etc.

✏️ Article Review FAQ

A high-quality article review should summarize the assigned article’s content and offer data-backed reactions and evaluations of its quality in terms of the article’s purpose, methodology, and data used to argue the main points. It should be detailed, comprehensive, objective, and evidence-based.

The purpose of writing a review is to allow students to reflect on research quality and showcase their critical thinking and evaluation skills. Students should exhibit their mastery of close reading of research publications and their unbiased assessment.

The content of your article review will be the same in any format, with the only difference in the assignment’s formatting before submission. Ensure you have a separate title page made according to APA standards and cite sources using the parenthetical author-date referencing format.

You need to take a closer look at various dimensions of an assigned article to compose a valuable review. Study the author’s object of analysis, the purpose of their research, the chosen method, data, and findings. Evaluate all these dimensions critically to see whether the author has achieved the initial goals. Finally, offer improvement recommendations to add a critique aspect to your paper.

• Scientific Article Review: Duke University
• Book and Article Reviews: William & Mary, Writing Resources Center
• Sample Format for Reviewing a Journal Article: Boonshoft School of Medicine
• Research Paper Review – Structure and Format Guidelines: New Jersey Institute of Technology
• Article Review: University of Waterloo
• Writing Help: The Article Review: Central Michigan University Libraries
• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to LinkedIn
• Share to email

Short essays answer a specific question on the subject. They usually are anywhere between 250 words and 750 words long. A paper with less than 250 words isn’t considered a finished text, so it doesn’t fall under the category of a short essay. Essays of such format are required for...

High school and college students often face challenges when crafting a compare-and-contrast essay. A well-written paper of this kind needs to be structured appropriately to earn you good grades. Knowing how to organize your ideas allows you to present your ideas in a coherent and logical manner This article by...

If you’re a student, you’ve heard about a formal essay: a factual, research-based paper written in 3rd person. Most students have to produce dozens of them during their educational career.  Writing a formal essay may not be the easiest task. But fear not: our custom-writing team is here to guide...

Narrative essays are unlike anything you wrote throughout your academic career. Instead of writing a formal paper, you need to tell a story. Familiar elements such as evidence and arguments are replaced with exposition and character development. The importance of writing an outline for an essay like this is hard...

A précis is a brief synopsis of a written piece. It is used to summarize and analyze a text’s main points. If you need to write a précis for a research paper or the AP Lang exam, you’ve come to the right place. In this comprehensive guide by Custom-Writing.org, you’ll...

A synthesis essay requires you to work with multiple sources. You combine the information gathered from them to present a well-rounded argument on a topic. Are you looking for the ultimate guide on synthesis essay writing? You’ve come to the right place! In this guide by our custom writing team,...

Do you know how to make your essay stand out? One of the easiest ways is to start your introduction with a catchy hook. A hook is a phrase or a sentence that helps to grab the reader’s attention. After reading this article by Custom-Writing.org, you will be able to...

A critical analysis essay is an academic paper that requires a thorough examination of theoretical concepts and ideas. It includes a comparison of facts, differentiation between evidence and argument, and identification of biases. Crafting a good paper can be a daunting experience, but it will be much easier if you...

Critical thinking is the process of evaluating and analyzing information. People who use it in everyday life are open to different opinions. They rely on reason and logic when making conclusions about certain issues. A critical thinking essay shows how your thoughts change as you research your topic. This type...

Process analysis is an explanation of how something works or happens. Want to know more? Read the following article prepared by our custom writing specialists and learn about: So, let’s start digging deeper into this topic! ♻️ What Is Process Analysis? A process analysis describes and explains the succession of...

A visual analysis essay is an academic paper type that history and art students often deal with. It consists of a detailed description of an image or object. It can also include an interpretation or an argument that is supported by visual evidence. In this article, our custom writing experts...

Want to know how to write a reflection paper for college or school? To do that, you need to connect your personal experiences with theoretical knowledge. Usually, students are asked to reflect on a documentary, a text, or their experience. Sometimes one needs to write a paper about a lesson...

• Duke NetID Login
• 919.660.1100
• Duke Health Badge: 24-hour access
• Accounts & Access
• Databases, Journals & Books
• Request & Reserve
• Training & Consulting
• Request Articles & Books
• Renew Online
• Reserve Spaces
• Reserve a Locker
• Study & Meeting Rooms
• Course Reserves
• Pay Fines/Fees
• Recommend a Purchase
• Access From Off Campus
• Building Access
• Computers & Equipment
• Wifi Access
• My Accounts
• Mobile Apps
• Known Access Issues
• Report an Access Issue
• All Databases
• Article Databases
• Basic Sciences
• Clinical Sciences
• Dissertations & Theses
• Drugs, Chemicals & Toxicology
• Grants & Funding
• Interprofessional Education
• Non-Medical Databases
• Search for E-Journals
• Search for Print & E-Journals
• Search for E-Books
• Search for Print & E-Books
• E-Book Collections
• Biostatistics
• Global Health
• MBS Program
• Medical Students
• MMCi Program
• Occupational Therapy
• Path Asst Program
• Physical Therapy
• Researchers
• Community Partners

Conducting Research

• Archival & Historical Research
• Black History at Duke Health
• Data Analytics & Viz Software
• Data: Find and Share
• Evidence-Based Practice
• NIH Public Access Policy Compliance
• Publication Metrics
• Qualitative Research
• Searching Animal Alternatives

Systematic Reviews

• Test Instruments

Using Databases

• JCR Impact Factors
• Web of Science

Finding & Accessing

• COVID-19: Core Clinical Resources
• Health Literacy
• Health Statistics & Data
• Library Orientation

Writing & Citing

• Creating Links
• Getting Published
• Reference Mgmt
• Scientific Writing

Meet a Librarian

• Request a Consultation
• Find Your Liaisons
• Register for a Class
• Request a Class
• Self-Paced Learning

Search Services

• Literature Search
• Systematic Review
• Animal Alternatives (IACUC)
• Research Impact

Citation Mgmt

• Other Software

Scholarly Communications

• About Scholarly Communications
• Publish Your Work
• Measure Your Research Impact
• Engage in Open Science
• Libraries and Publishers
• Directions & Maps
• Floor Plans

Library Updates

• Annual Snapshot
• Conference Presentations
• Contact Information
• Gifts & Donations
• What is a Systematic Review?

Types of Reviews

• Manuals and Reporting Guidelines
• Our Service
• 1. Assemble Your Team
• 2. Develop a Research Question
• 3. Write and Register a Protocol
• 4. Search the Evidence
• 5. Screen Results
• 6. Assess for Quality and Bias
• 7. Extract the Data
• 8. Write the Review
• Additional Resources
• Finding Full-Text Articles

Review Typologies

There are many types of evidence synthesis projects, including systematic reviews as well as others. The selection of review type is wholly dependent on the research question. Not all research questions are well-suited for systematic reviews.

• Review Typologies (from LITR-EX) This site explores different review methodologies such as, systematic, scoping, realist, narrative, state of the art, meta-ethnography, critical, and integrative reviews. The LITR-EX site has a health professions education focus, but the advice and information is widely applicable.

Review the table to peruse review types and associated methodologies. Librarians can also help your team determine which review type might be appropriate for your project. 

Reproduced from Grant, M. J. and Booth, A. (2009), A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26: 91-108.  doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x

• << Previous: What is a Systematic Review?
• Next: Manuals and Reporting Guidelines >>
• Last Updated: Jun 18, 2024 9:41 AM
• URL: https://guides.mclibrary.duke.edu/sysreview
• Duke Health
• Duke University
• Duke Libraries
• Medical Center Archives
• Duke Directory
• Seeley G. Mudd Building
• 10 Searle Drive
• [email protected]

• Our Writers
• How to Order
• Assignment Writing Service
• Report Writing Service
• Buy Coursework
• Dissertation Writing Service
• Research Paper Writing Service
• All Essay Services
• Buy Research Paper
• Buy Term Paper
• Buy Dissertation
• Buy Case study
• Buy Presentation
• Buy Personal statement

Article Review

Article Review Writing: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide with Examples

People also read

Learn How to Write an Editorial on Any Topic

Best Tips on How to Avoid Plagiarism

How to Write a Movie Review - Guide & Examples

A Complete Guide on How to Write a Summary for Students

Write Opinion Essay Like a Pro: A Detailed Guide

Evaluation Essay - Definition, Examples, and Writing Tips

How to Write a Thematic Statement - Tips & Examples

How to Write a Bio - Quick Tips, Structure & Examples

How to Write a Synopsis – A Simple Format & Guide

How to Write a Comparative Essay – A Complete Guide

Visual Analysis Essay - A Writing Guide with Format & Sample

List of Common Social Issues Around the World

Writing Character Analysis - Outline, Steps, and Examples

11 Common Types of Plagiarism Explained Through Examples

A Detailed Guide on How to Write a Poem Step by Step

Detailed Guide on Appendix Writing: With Tips and Examples

Struggling to write a review that people actually want to read? Feeling lost in the details and wondering how to make your analysis stand out?

You're not alone!

Many writers find it tough to navigate the world of article reviews, not sure where to start or how to make their reviews really grab attention.

No worries! 

In this blog, we're going to guide you through the process of writing an article review that stands out. We'll also share tips, and examples to make this process easier for you.

Let’s get started.

• 1. What is an Article Review?
• 2. Types of Article Reviews
• 3. Article Review Format
• 4. How to Write an Article Review? 10 Easy Steps
• 5. Article Review Outline
• 6. Article Review Examples
• 7. Tips for Writing an Effective Article Review

What is an Article Review?

An article review is a critical evaluation and analysis of a piece of writing, typically an academic or journalistic article. 

It goes beyond summarizing the content; it involves an in-depth examination of the author's ideas, arguments, and methodologies. 

The goal is to provide a well-rounded understanding of the article's strengths, weaknesses, and overall contribution to the field.

Tough Essay Due? Hire Tough Writers!

Types of Article Reviews

Article reviews come in various forms, each serving a distinct purpose in the realm of academic or professional discourse. Understanding these types is crucial for tailoring your approach. 

Here are some common types of article reviews:

Journal Article Review

A journal article review involves a thorough evaluation of scholarly articles published in academic journals. 

It requires summarizing the article's key points, methodology, and findings, emphasizing its contributions to the academic field. 

Take a look at the following example to help you understand better.

Example of Journal Article Review

Research Article Review

A research article review focuses on scrutinizing articles with a primary emphasis on research.

This type of review involves evaluating the research design, methodology, results, and their broader implications. 

Discussions on the interpretation of results, limitations, and the article's overall contributions are key. 

Here is a sample for you to get an idea.

Example of Research Article Review

Science Article Review

A science article review specifically addresses articles within scientific disciplines. It includes summarizing scientific concepts, hypotheses, and experimental methods.

The type of review assesses the reliability of the experimental design, and evaluates the author's interpretation of findings. 

Take a look at the following example.

Example of Science Article Review

Critical Review

A critical review involves a balanced critique of a given article. It encompasses providing a comprehensive summary, highlighting key points, and engaging in a critical analysis of strengths and weaknesses. 

To get a clearer idea of a critical review, take a look at this example.

Critical Review Example

Article Review Format

When crafting an article review in either APA or MLA format, it's crucial to adhere to the specific guidelines for citing sources. 

Below are the bibliographical entries for different types of sources in both APA and MLA styles:

How to Write an Article Review? 10 Easy Steps

Writing an effective article review involves a systematic approach. Follow this step-by-step process to ensure a comprehensive and well-structured analysis.

Step 1: Understand the Assignment

Before diving into the review, carefully read and understand the assignment guidelines. 

Pay attention to specific requirements, such as word count, formatting style (APA, MLA), and the aspects your instructor wants you to focus on.

Step 2: Read the Article Thoroughly

Begin by thoroughly reading the article. Take notes on key points, arguments, and evidence presented by the author. 

Understand the author's main thesis and the context in which the article was written.

Step 3: Create a Summary

Summarize the main points of the article. Highlight the author's key arguments and findings. 

While writing the summary ensure that you capture the essential elements of the article to provide context for your analysis.

Step 4: Identify the Author's Thesis

In this step, pinpoint the author's main thesis or central argument. Understand the purpose of the article and how the author supports their position. 

This will serve as a foundation for your critique.

Step 5: Evaluate the Author's Evidence and Methodology

Examine the evidence provided by the author to support their thesis. Assess the reliability and validity of the methodology used. 

Consider the sources, data collection methods, and any potential biases.

Step 6: Analyze the Author's Writing Style

Evaluate the author's writing style and how effectively they communicate their ideas. 

Consider the clarity of the language, the organization of the content, and the overall persuasiveness of the article.

Step 7: Consider the Article's Contribution

Reflect on the article's contribution to its field of study. Analyze how it fits into the existing literature, its significance, and any potential implications for future research or applications.

Step 8: Write the Introduction

Craft an introduction that includes the article's title, author, publication date, and a brief overview. 

State the purpose of your review and your thesis—the main point you'll be analyzing in your review.

Step 9: Develop the Body of the Review

Organize your review by addressing specific aspects such as the author's thesis, methodology, writing style, and the article's contribution. 

Use clear paragraphs to structure your analysis logically.

Step 10: Conclude with a Summary and Evaluation

Summarize your main points and restate your overall assessment of the article. 

Offer insights into its strengths and weaknesses, and conclude with any recommendations for improvement or suggestions for further research.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job!

Article Review Outline

Creating a well-organized outline is an essential part of writing a coherent and insightful article review.

This outline given below will guide you through the key sections of your review, ensuring that your analysis is comprehensive and logically structured.

Refer to the following template to understand outlining the article review in detail.

Article Review Format Template

Article Review Examples

Examining article review examples can provide valuable insights into the structure, tone, and depth of analysis expected. 

Below are sample article reviews, each illustrating a different approach and focus.

Example of Article Review

Sample of article review assignment pdf

Tips for Writing an Effective Article Review

Crafting an effective article review involves a combination of critical analysis, clarity, and structure. 

Here are some valuable tips to guide you through the process:

• Start with a Clear Introduction

Kick off your article review by introducing the article's main points and mentioning the publication date, which you can find on the re-title page. Outline the topics you'll cover in your review.

• Concise Summary with Unanswered Questions

Provide a short summary of the article, emphasizing its main ideas. Highlight any lingering questions, known as "unanswered questions," that the article may have triggered. Use a basic article review template to help structure your thoughts.

• Illustrate with Examples

Use examples from the article to illustrate your points. If there are tables or figures in the article, discuss them to make your review more concrete and easily understandable.

• Organize Clearly with a Summary Section

Keep your review straightforward and well-organized. Begin with the start of the article, express your thoughts on what you liked or didn't like, and conclude with a summary section. This follows a basic plan for clarity.

• Constructive Criticism

When providing criticism, be constructive. If there are elements you don't understand, frame them as "unanswered questions." This approach shows engagement and curiosity.

• Smoothly Connect Your Ideas

Ensure your thoughts flow naturally throughout your review. Use simple words and sentences. If you have questions about the article, let them guide your review organically.

• Revise and Check for Clarity

Before finishing, go through your review. Correct any mistakes and ensure it sounds clear. Check if you followed your plan, used simple words, and incorporated the keywords effectively. This makes your review better and more accessible for others.

In conclusion , writing an effective article review involves a thoughtful balance of summarizing key points, and addressing unanswered questions. 

By following a simple and structured approach, you can create a review that not only analyzes the content but also adds value to the reader's understanding.

Remember to organize your thoughts logically, use clear language, and provide examples from the article to support your points. 

Ready to elevate your article reviewing skills? Explore the valuable resources and expert assistance at MyPerfectWords.com. 

Our team of experienced writers is here to help you with article reviews and other school tasks. 

So why wait? Place your " write my essays online " request today!

Write Essay Within 60 Seconds!

Dr. Barbara is a highly experienced writer and author who holds a Ph.D. degree in public health from an Ivy League school. She has worked in the medical field for many years, conducting extensive research on various health topics. Her writing has been featured in several top-tier publications.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That’s our Job!

Keep reading

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing a Literature Review

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

• Research Process

Writing a good review article

• 3 minute read
• 83.8K views

Table of Contents

As a young researcher, you might wonder how to start writing your first review article, and the extent of the information that it should contain. A review article is a comprehensive summary of the current understanding of a specific research topic and is based on previously published research. Unlike research papers, it does not contain new results, but can propose new inferences based on the combined findings of previous research.

Types of review articles

Review articles are typically of three types: literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.

A literature review is a general survey of the research topic and aims to provide a reliable and unbiased account of the current understanding of the topic.

A systematic review , in contrast, is more specific and attempts to address a highly focused research question. Its presentation is more detailed, with information on the search strategy used, the eligibility criteria for inclusion of studies, the methods utilized to review the collected information, and more.

A meta-analysis is similar to a systematic review in that both are systematically conducted with a properly defined research question. However, unlike the latter, a meta-analysis compares and evaluates a defined number of similar studies. It is quantitative in nature and can help assess contrasting study findings.

Tips for writing a good review article

Here are a few practices that can make the time-consuming process of writing a review article easier:

• Define your question: Take your time to identify the research question and carefully articulate the topic of your review paper. A good review should also add something new to the field in terms of a hypothesis, inference, or conclusion. A carefully defined scientific question will give you more clarity in determining the novelty of your inferences.
• Identify credible sources: Identify relevant as well as credible studies that you can base your review on, with the help of multiple databases or search engines. It is also a good idea to conduct another search once you have finished your article to avoid missing relevant studies published during the course of your writing.
• Take notes: A literature search involves extensive reading, which can make it difficult to recall relevant information subsequently. Therefore, make notes while conducting the literature search and note down the source references. This will ensure that you have sufficient information to start with when you finally get to writing.
• Describe the title, abstract, and introduction: A good starting point to begin structuring your review is by drafting the title, abstract, and introduction. Explicitly writing down what your review aims to address in the field will help shape the rest of your article.
• Be unbiased and critical: Evaluate every piece of evidence in a critical but unbiased manner. This will help you present a proper assessment and a critical discussion in your article.
• Include a good summary: End by stating the take-home message and identify the limitations of existing studies that need to be addressed through future studies.
• Ask for feedback: Ask a colleague to provide feedback on both the content and the language or tone of your article before you submit it.
• Check your journal’s guidelines: Some journals only publish reviews, while some only publish research articles. Further, all journals clearly indicate their aims and scope. Therefore, make sure to check the appropriateness of a journal before submitting your article.

Writing review articles, especially systematic reviews or meta-analyses, can seem like a daunting task. However, Elsevier Author Services can guide you by providing useful tips on how to write an impressive review article that stands out and gets published!

• Manuscript Preparation

What are Implications in Research?

How to write the results section of a research paper

You may also like.

Descriptive Research Design and Its Myriad Uses

Five Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Biomedical Research Paper

Making Technical Writing in Environmental Engineering Accessible

To Err is Not Human: The Dangers of AI-assisted Academic Writing

When Data Speak, Listen: Importance of Data Collection and Analysis Methods

Choosing the Right Research Methodology: A Guide for Researchers

Why is data validation important in research?

Scholarly Sources: What are They and Where can You Find Them?

Input your search keywords and press Enter.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Published: 12 June 2024

Microsurgery in periodontics and oral implantology: a systematic review of current clinical applications and outcomes

• Hamoun Sabri   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6581-2104 1 ,
• Sara Alhachache 2 ,
• Pramiti Saxena 1 ,
• Prerana Dubey 1 ,
• Paolo Nava   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0009-6177-3000 1 ,
• Syed Hanan Rufai 1 &
• Farzin Sarkarat 3  

Evidence-Based Dentistry ( 2024 ) Cite this article

22 Accesses

Metrics details

• Dental implants
• Dentoalveolar surgery

The aim of this systematic review was to comprehensively explore the current trends and therapeutic approaches in which an operating microscope (OM) is used in periodontics and dental implant surgeries.

Materials and methods

A systematic search strategy was built to detect studies including various surgical techniques performed under an OM. PubMed, EMBASE, and SCOPUS databases were searched. No limitations in terms of time and language were applied. The data regarding the study design, type of procedure, treatment groups, and surgical outcomes were collected and analyzed descriptively. In addition, a bibliometric analysis was performed concerning the co-authorship and keyword co-occurrence network.

Out of 1985 articles, finally, 55 met the inclusion criteria. Current periodontal and implant microsurgery trends consist of: periodontal therapy, dental implant microsurgery, soft tissue grafting and periodontal plastic surgery, bone augmentation, ridge preservation, and ortho-perio microsurgery. The bibliometric analysis revealed “guided tissue regeneration”, “periodontal regeneration” and “root coverage” being the most repeated keywords (landmark nodes). 132 authors within 29 clusters were identified, publishing within the frameworks of “periodontal and implant microsurgery”.

Within its limitations, this systematic review provides an overview of the latest trends in periodontal and implant microsurgery when considering the use of an OM as the magnification tool. Also, it discusses the reported success and outcomes of the mentioned procedures.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 4 print issues and online access

251,40 € per year

only 62,85 € per issue

Buy this article

• Purchase on Springer Link
• Instant access to full article PDF

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Similar content being viewed by others

Black staining: an overview for the general dental practitioner

Angiogenesis is uncoupled from osteogenesis during calvarial bone regeneration

Clinical applications of stem cell-derived exosomes

Data availability.

The data is available upon request from the authors.

Cortellini P, Tonetti MS. Microsurgical approach to periodontal regeneration. Initial evaluation in a case cohort. J Periodontol. 2001;72:559–69.

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Yu SH, Oh TJ, Wang HL, Chan HL. Amnion-Chorion Membrane in Open-Wound Approach for Localized Horizontal Ridge Augmentation: A Case Series Report. Clin Adv Periodontics. 2022;12:101–5.

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Srivastava R, Mohan R, Saravana Balaji MD, Vijay VK, Srinivasan S, Navarasu M. A Randomized Controlled Trial on a Minimally Invasive Microsurgical Versus Conventional Procedure for the Management of Localized Gingival Recession in Esthetic Zone using Alloderm. J Pharm Bioallied Sci. 2021;13:S476–83.

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Di Gianfilippo R, Wang I, Steigmann L, Velasquez D, Wang H-L, Chan H-L. Efficacy of microsurgery and comparison to macrosurgery for gingival recession treatment: a systematic review with meta-analysis. Clin Oral Investig. 2021;25:4269–80.

Sultan N, Jafri Z, Sawai M, Bhardwaj A. Minimally invasive periodontal therapy. J Oral Biol Craniofacial Res. 2020;10:161–5.

Article   Google Scholar  

Sabri H, SamavatiJame F, Sarkarat F, Wang HL, Zadeh HH. Clinical efficacy of Vestibular Incision Subperiosteal Tunnel Access (VISTA) for treatment of multiple gingival recession defects: a systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression. Clin Oral Investig. 2023;27:7171–87.

Tamai S. History of microsurgery. Plast Reconstructive Surg. 2009;124:e282–94.

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Shanelec DA. Periodontal microsurgery. J Esthet Restor Dent. 2003;15:402–7. discussion 408.

Tibbetts LS, Shanelec D. Periodontal microsurgery. Dent Clin North Am. 1998;42:339–59.

Daniel RK. Microsurgery: through the looking glass. N. Engl J Med. 1979;300:1251–7.

Carr GB, Murgel CA. The use of the operating microscope in endodontics. Dent Clin. 2010;54:191–214.

Google Scholar  

Sitbon Y, Attathom T, St-Georges A. Minimal intervention dentistry II: part 1. Contribution of the operating microscope to dentistry. Br Dent J. 2014;216:125–30.

Shanelec DA, Tibbetts LS. A perspective on the future of periodontal microsurgery. Periodontology. 1996;11:58–64.

Chambrone L, Pini Prato GP. Clinical insights about the evolution of root coverage procedures: The flap, the graft, and the surgery. J Periodontol. 2019;90:9–15.

Azaripour A, Kissinger M, Farina VSL, Van Noorden CJ, Gerhold‐Ay A, Willershausen B, et al. Root coverage with connective tissue graft associated with coronally advanced flap or tunnel technique: a randomized, double‐blind, mono‐centre clinical trial. J Clin Periodontol. 2016;43:1142–50.

Burkhardt R, Lang NP. Coverage of localized gingival recessions: comparison of micro‐and macrosurgical techniques. J Clin Periodontol. 2005;32:287–93.

Gargallo-Albiol J, Sinjab KH, Barootchi S, Chan H-L, Wang H-L. Microscope and micro-camera assessment of Schneiderian membrane perforation via transcrestal sinus floor elevation: A randomized ex vivo study. Clin Oral Implants Res. 2019;30:682–90.

Jiao Y, Hasegawa M, Inohara N. The role of oral pathobionts in dysbiosis during periodontitis development. J Dent Res. 2014;93:539–46.

Article   CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Hajishengallis G. Periodontitis: from microbial immune subversion to systemic inflammation. Nat Rev Immunol. 2015;15:30–44.

Cortellini P, Nieri M, Pini Prato G, Tonetti MS. Single minimally invasive surgical technique with an enamel matrix derivative to treat multiple adjacent intra‐bony defects: Clinical outcomes and patient morbidity. J Clin Periodontol. 2008;35:605–13.

Cortellini P, Tonetti MS. Improved wound stability with a modified minimally invasive surgical technique in the regenerative treatment of isolated interdental intrabony defects. J Clin Periodontol. 2009;36:157–63.

Cortellini P, Pini-Prato G, Nieri M, Tonetti MS. Minimally invasive surgical technique and enamel matrix derivative in intrabony defects: 2. Factors associated with healing outcomes. Int J Periodontics Restor Dent. 2009;29:257–65.

Bertossi D, Vercellotti T, Podesta A, Nocini PF. Orthodontic Microsurgery for Rapid Dental Repositioning in Dental Malpositions. J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2011;69:747–53.

Cortellini P, Tonetti M, Prato GP. The partly epithelialized free gingival graft (pe-fgg) at lower incisors. A pilot study with implications for alignment of the mucogingival junction. J Clin Periodontol. 2012;39:674–80.

Penmetsa GS, Panda KD, Manthena AKR, Korukonda RR, Gadde P. Evaluating the efficacy of different magnification variables during root planing procedure under a surgical operating microscope in chronic periodontitis: A randomized clinical trial. J Indian Soc Periodontol. 2020;24:32–36.

Rodriguez JAM, Ruiz AJO. Apical approach in periodontal reconstructive surgery with enamel matrix derivate and enamel matrix derivate plus bone substitutes: a randomized, controlled clinical trial. Clin Oral Investig. 2022;26:2793–805.

Shanelec DA, Tibbetts LS. Implant Microsurgery: Immediate Implant Placement With Implant‐Supported Provisional. Clin Adv Periodontics. 2011;1:161–72.

Sabri H, Barootchi S, Heck T, Wang HL. Single‐rooted extraction socket classification: A systematic review and proposal of a new classification system based on morphologic and patient‐related factors. J Esthet Restor Dent. 2023;35:168–82.

Pandolfi A. A modified approach to horizontal augmention of soft tissue around the implant: omega roll envelope flap. Description of surgical technique. La Clin Terapeutica. 2018;169:e165–9.

CAS   Google Scholar  

Jain D, Mohan R, Singh VD. Comparison of microsurgical and macrosurgical technique using bioactive synthetic bone graft and collagen membrane for an implant site development: A randomized controlled clinical trial. J Indian Soc Periodontol. 2019;23:448–460.

Sirinirund B, Chan H-L, Velasquez D. Microscope-Assisted Maxillary Sinus Augmentation: A Case Series. Int J Periodontics Restor Dent. 2021;41:531–7.

Shakibaie- MB. Comparison of the effectiveness of two different bone substitute materials for socket preservation after tooth extraction: a controlled clinical study. Int J Periodontics Restor Dent. 2013;33:223–8.

Shakibaie B. Microscope-controlled internal sinus floor elevation (MCI-SFE): A new technique to evaluate the sinus membrane during transcrestal lifting. Int J Microdentistry. 2013;4:12–19.

Shakibaie B, Sabri H, Blatz MB, Barootchi S. Comparison of the minimally-invasive roll-in envelope flap technique to the holding suture technique in implant surgery: A prospective case series. J Esthet Restor Dent. 2023;35:625–31.

Chambrone L, Tatakis DN. Periodontal soft tissue root coverage procedures: a systematic review from the AAP Regeneration Workshop. J Periodontol. 2015;86:S8–51.

Richardson CR, Allen EP, Chambrone L, et al. Periodontal Soft Tissue Root Coverage Procedures: Practical Applications From the AAP Regeneration Workshop. Clin Adv Periodontics. 2015;5:2–10.

Harris RJ. A comparison of two techniques for obtaining a connective tissue graft from the palate. Int J Periodontics Restor Dent. 1997;17:260–71.

Stefanini M, Barootchi S, Tavelli L, Marzadori M, Mazzotti C, Mounssif I, et al. Difficulty score for the treatment of isolated gingival recessions with the coronally advanced flap: a preliminary reliability study. Clin Oral Investig. 2022;27:559–69.

Zuhr O, Bäumer D, Hürzeler M. The addition of soft tissue replacement grafts in plastic periodontal and implant surgery: critical elements in design and execution. J Clin Periodontol. 2014;41:S123–42.

Gil Escalante M, Tatakis DN. Gingival cyst of the adult as early sequela of connective tissue grafting. Case Rep Dent. 2015;2015:473689.

Maia VTG, Kahn S, Souza ABD, Fernandes G. De‐epithelialized connective tissue graft and the reminiscent epithelial content after harvested by the Harris’ technique: a histological and morphometrical case series. Clin Adv Periodontics. 2021;11:150–4.

Kahn S, Araújo ITE, Dias AT, Balduíno A, Chambrone L, de Oliveira Fernandes GV. Histologic and histomorphometric analysis of connective tissue grafts harvested by the parallel incision method: a pilot randomized controlled trial comparing macro-and microsurgical approaches. Quintessence Int. 2021;52:772.

PubMed   Google Scholar  

Patel C, Mehta R, Joshi S, Hirani T, Joshi C. Comparative evaluation of treatment of localized gingival recessions with coronally advanced flap using microsurgical and conventional techniques. Contemp Clin Dent. 2018;9:613.

Francetti L, Del Fabbro M, Calace S, Testori T, Weinstein RL. Microsurgical treatment of gingival recession: a controlled clinical study. Int J Periodontics Restor Dent. 2005;25:181–8.

Francetti L, Del Fabbro M, Testori T, Weinstein RL. Periodontal microsurgery: report of 16 cases consecutively treated by the free rotated papilla autograft technique combined with the coronally advanced flap. Int J Periodontics Restor Dent. 2004;24:272–9.

Kahn S, WJdPR Rodrigues, MdO Barceleiro. Periodontal plastic microsurgery in the treatment of deep gingival recession after orthodontic movement. Case Rep. Dent. 2013;2013:851413.

PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Yadav D, Singh S, Roy S. Periodontal microsurgery for management of multiple marginal tissue recession using Zucchelli’s modification of coronally advanced flap and pericardium membrane in an esthetic zone. J Indian Soc Periodontol. 2019;23:284.

Kumar A, Bains VK, Jhingran R, Srivastava R, Madan R, Rizvi I. Patient-centered microsurgical management of gingival recession using coronally advanced flap with either platelet-rich fibrin or connective tissue graft: A comparative analysis. Contemp Clin Dent. 2017;8:293.

Thankkappan P, Roy S, Mandlik VB. Comparative evaluation of management of gingival recession using subepithelial connective tissue graft and collagen membrane by periodontal microsurgical technique: A clinical study of 40 cases. J Indian Soc Periodontol. 2016;20:189.

Agarwal SK, Jhingran R, Bains VK, Srivastava R, Madan R, Rizvi I. Patient-centered evaluation of microsurgical management of gingival recession using coronally advanced flap with platelet-rich fibrin or amnion membrane: A comparative analysis. Eur J Dent. 2016;10:121–33.

Kaval B, Renaud DE, Scott DA, Buduneli N. The role of smoking and gingival crevicular fluid markers on coronally advanced flap outcomes. J Periodontol. 2014;85:395–405.

Andrade PF, Grisi MF, Marcaccini AM, et al. Comparison between micro‐and macrosurgical techniques for the treatment of localized gingival recessions using coronally positioned flaps and enamel matrix derivative. J Periodontol. 2010;81:1572–9.

Nizam N, Bengisu O, Sönmez Ş. Micro- and Macrosurgical Techniques in the Coverage of Gingival Recession Using Connective Tissue Graft: 2 Years Follow-Up. J Esthet Restor Dent. 2015;27:71–83.

Kareem N, Mahendra J, Kumar KA. Triangular coronally advanced flap: Conventional versus Microsurgery. J Indian Soc Periodontol. 2018;22:73.

Bittencourt S, Del Peloso Ribeiro É, Sallum EA, Nociti FH Jr, Casati MZ. Surgical microscope may enhance root coverage with subepithelial connective tissue graft: A randomized‐controlled clinical trial. J Periodontol. 2012;83:721–30.

Pandey S, Mehta D. Treatment of localized gingival recession using the free rotated papilla autograft combined with coronally advanced flap by conventional (macrosurgery) and surgery under magnification (microsurgical) technique: A comparative clinical study. J Indian Soc Periodontol. 2013;17:765.

Chandra A, Gupta HL, Kumar P. Esthetic root coverage by sub epithelial connective tissue graft microsurgery: a case report.IJSS Case Reports & Reviews 2015;2:16–9.

Jaiswal PG, Puri SS, Bhongade ML. Evaluation of effectiveness of subepithelial connective tissue graft in combination with coronally positioned flap in the treatment of isolated gingival recession in esthetic areas by using surgical microscope. J Datta Meghe Inst Med Sci Univ. 2017;12:79.

Jindal U, Pandit N, Bali D, Malik R, Gugnani S. Comparative evaluation of recession coverage with sub-epithelial connective tissue graft using macrosurgical and microsurgical approaches: A randomized split mouth study. J Indian Soc Periodontol. 2015;19:203–7.

Mohan R, Jain R. Microsurgical Approach for Root Coverage of Receding Gingiva in the Esthetic Zone. Arch Reconstr Microsurg. 2013;22:69–73.

Georgieva I. Coronally advanced flap technique for root coverage in the aesthetic zone of upper jaw. J IMAB Annu Proc Sci Pap. 2020;26:3267–70.

Dhir V, Jha A. Microsurgical treatment of gingival recession by subepithelial connective tissue graft: a case report. Med J Armed Forces India. 2011;67:293.

Nivetha R. Clinical outcome of coronally advanced flap and modified coronally advanced flap using microsurgery technique in the treatment of miller’s class I and II gingival recession: A Comparative study. Madurai: Best Dental Science College; 2018.

Kahn S, de Oliveira LZ, Dias AT, Fernandes GVO. Clinical evaluation and biological understanding of the early step-by-step healing after periodontal microsurgery: A case report with PES analysis comparing initial and 31-day result. J Adv Periodontol Implant Dent. 2022;14:141–5.

Katariya C, Rajasekar A. Comparison between conventional and micro-assisted periodontal surgery: Case series. J Adv Pharm Technol Res. 2022;13:S348–52.

Karmakar S, Kamath DSG, Shetty NJ, Natarajan S. Treatment of Multiple Adjacent Class I and Class II Gingival Recessions by Modified Microsurgical Tunnel Technique and Modified Coronally Advanced Flap Using Connective Tissue Graft: A Randomized Mono-center Clinical Trial. J Int Soc Prev Community Dent. 2022;12:38–48.

Mohan R, Srivastava R, Gundappa M. Microsurgical Reconstruction of Receded Gingiva Using Alloderm In Esthetic Zone. Juniper Online J Orthopedic Orthoplastic Surg. 2017;1:30–2.

Karring T, Östergaard E, Löe H. Conservation of tissue specifically after heterotopic transplantation of gingiva and alveolar mucosa. J Periodontal Res. 1971;6:282–93.

Induchoodan A, Remya R. Interdental Papilla Reconstruction using Modified Nordland’s Microsurgical Technique: A Case Study. Int J Drug Res Dent Sci. 2021;3:97–105.

Akiyama K. Papilla reconstruction using the dental operating microscope. Int. J. Microdentistry. 2009;1:25–9.

Singh D, Jhingran R, Bains VK, Madan R, Srivastava R. Efficacy of platelet-rich fibrin in interdental papilla reconstruction as compared to connective tissue using microsurgical approach. Contemp Clin Dent. 2019;10:643.

Reddy SSP, Manohar B. Microsurgical approach for the management of gingival cleft: A case series and decision-making process. Clin Adv Periodontics. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1002/cap.10277 .

Mamoun J. Use of elevator instruments when luxating and extracting teeth in dentistry: clinical techniques. J Korean Assoc Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2017;43:204–11.

Mamoun J. Use of high-magnification loupes or surgical operating microscope when performing prophylaxes, scaling or root planing procedures. N. Y State Dent J. 2013;79:48.

Donthu N, Kumar S, Mukherjee D, Pandey N, Lim WM. How to conduct a bibliometric analysis: An overview and guidelines. J Bus Res. 2021;133:285–96.

Sabri H, Wang HL, Peri-implantitis: A. bibliometric network analysis of top 100 most-cited research articles. Clin Implant Dent Relat Res. 2023;25:284–302.

Sabri H, Manouchehri N, Tavelli L, Kan JYK, Wang HL, Barootchi S. Five decades of research on immediate implant therapy: A modern bibliometric network analysis via Altmetric and level of evidence mapping. Clin Oral Implants Res. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1111/clr.14269 .

Ribeiro FV, Casarin RCV, Junior FHN, Sallum EA, Casati MZ. The Role of Enamel Matrix Derivative Protein in Minimally Invasive Surgery in Treating Intrabony Defects in Single-Rooted Teeth: A Randomized Clinical Trial. J Periodontol. 2011;82:522–32.

Ribeiro FV, Casarin RCV, Palma MAG, Junior FHN, Sallum EA, Casati RZ. Clinical and Patient-Centered Outcomes After Minimally Invasive Non-Surgical or Surgical Approaches for the Treatment of Intrabony Defects: A Randomized Clinical Trial. J Periodontol. 2011;82:1256–66.

Aslan S, Buduneli N, Cortellini P. Clinical outcomes of the entire papilla preservation technique with and without biomaterials in the treatment of isolated intrabony defects: A randomized controlled clinical trial. J Clin Periodontol. 2020;47:470–8.

Aslan S, Buduneli N, Cortellini P. Reconstructive surgical treatment of isolated deep intrabony defects with guided tissue regeneration using entire papilla preservation technique: A prospective case series. J Periodontol. 2021;92:488–95.

Sabri H, Sarkarat F, Mortezagholi B, Aghajani D. Non‐surgical management of oro‐antral communication using platelet‐rich fibrin: A review of the literature. Oral Surg. 2022;15:455–64.

Cortellini P, Tonetti MS. Clinical and radiographic outcomes of the modified minimally invasive surgical technique with and without regenerative materials: a randomized-controlled trial in intra-bony defects. J Clin Periodontol. 2011;38:365–73.

Ahmad N, Tewari S, Narula SC, Sharma RK, Tanwar N. Platelet-rich fibrin along with a modified minimally invasive surgical technique for the treatment of intrabony defects: a randomized clinical trial. J Periodontal Implant Sci. 2019;49:355–65.

Azar EL, Rojas MA, Mandalunis P, Gualtieri A, Carranza N. Histological evaluation of subepithelial connective tissue grafts harvested by two different techniques: Preliminary study in humans. Acta Odontol Latinoam. 2019;32:10–16.

Rauten AM, Surlin P, Oprea B, Siloşi I, Moisa M, Caramizaru D, et al. Matrix metalloproteinase 9 levels in gingival crevicular fluid in patients after periodontal microsurgery for orthodontic induced gingival hypertrophy. Rom J Morphol Embryol. 2011;52:431–3.

Download references

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Periodontics and Oral Medicine, University of Michigan School of Dentistry, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Hamoun Sabri, Pramiti Saxena, Prerana Dubey, Paolo Nava & Syed Hanan Rufai

Department of Periodontics, University of Louisville School of Dental Medicine, Louisville, KY, USA

Sara Alhachache

Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Gulf Medical University, Ajman, United Arab Emirates

Farzin Sarkarat

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

HS: Conceptualization, manuscript writing, data analysis, SA: Manuscript writing, data collection, final revision, PS: Manuscript writing, data collection, final revision, PD: Manuscript writing, data collection, final revision, PN: data collection, final revision, SHR: data collection, final revision, FS: Conceptualization, manuscript writing, critical review of final version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hamoun Sabri .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information, rights and permissions.

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Sabri, H., Alhachache, S., Saxena, P. et al. Microsurgery in periodontics and oral implantology: a systematic review of current clinical applications and outcomes. Evid Based Dent (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41432-024-01024-4

Download citation

Received : 06 March 2024

Accepted : 03 May 2024

Published : 12 June 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41432-024-01024-4

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Warning: The NCBI web site requires JavaScript to function. more...

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it's official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings
• Browse Titles

NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.

Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet].

Chapter 9 methods for literature reviews.

Guy Paré and Spyros Kitsiou .

9.1. Introduction

Literature reviews play a critical role in scholarship because science remains, first and foremost, a cumulative endeavour ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). As in any academic discipline, rigorous knowledge syntheses are becoming indispensable in keeping up with an exponentially growing eHealth literature, assisting 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 subject or topic; (b) determining the extent to which a specific research area reveals any interpretable trends or patterns; (c) aggregating 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 take 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 usually identifies the gaps in knowledge that the empirical study addresses ( Sylvester, Tate, & Johnstone, 2013 ). It may also provide a theoretical foundation for the proposed study, substantiate the presence of the research problem, justify the research as one that contributes something new to the cumulated knowledge, or validate the methods and approaches for the proposed study ( 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 for a researcher’s own work, it creates a solid starting point for all members of the community interested in a particular area or topic ( Mulrow, 1987 ). The so-called “review article” is a journal-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 represent powerful information sources for practitioners looking for state-of-the art evidence to guide their decision-making and work practices ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, high-quality reviews become frequently cited pieces of work which researchers seek out as a first clear 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 often 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 have an overview, if not a detailed knowledge of the area in question, as well as references to the most useful primary sources ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Although they are not easy to conduct, the commitment to complete a review article provides a tremendous service to one’s 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 type.

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 describe and contrast the different types of review articles that can contribute to the eHealth knowledge base; (c) to illustrate each review type with one or two examples from the eHealth literature; and (d) to provide a series of recommendations for prospective authors of review articles in this domain.

9.2. Overview of the Literature Review Process and Steps

As explained in Templier and Paré (2015) , there are six generic steps involved in conducting a review article:

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

Although these steps are presented here in sequential order, one must keep in mind that the review process can be iterative and that many activities can be initiated during the planning stage and later refined during subsequent phases ( Finfgeld-Connett & Johnson, 2013 ; Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ).

Formulating the research question(s) and objective(s): As a first step, members of the review team must appropriately justify the need for the review itself ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ), identify the review’s main objective(s) ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ), and define the concepts or variables at the heart of their synthesis ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ; Webster & Watson, 2002 ). Importantly, they also need to articulate the research question(s) they propose to investigate ( Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ). In this regard, we concur 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 selection of relevant literature, and guide or orient the subsequent analysis. Searching the extant literature: The next step consists of searching the literature and making decisions about the suitability of material to be considered in the review ( Cooper, 1988 ). There exist three main coverage strategies. First, exhaustive coverage means an effort is made to be as comprehensive as possible in order to ensure that all relevant studies, published and unpublished, are included in the review and, thus, conclusions are based on this all-inclusive knowledge base. The second type of coverage consists of presenting materials that are representative of most 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 third strategy, the review team concentrates on prior works that have been central or pivotal to a particular topic. This may include empirical studies or conceptual papers that initiated a line of investigation, changed how problems 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 material 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 team must screen them to determine their relevance ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). A set of predetermined rules provides a basis for including or excluding certain studies. This exercise requires a significant investment on the part of researchers, who must ensure enhanced objectivity and avoid biases or mistakes. As discussed later in this chapter, for certain types of reviews there must be at least two independent reviewers involved in the screening process and a procedure to resolve disagreements must also 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 research design and methods. Such formal assessment, which is usually conducted independently by at least two coders, helps members of the review team refine which studies to include in the final sample, determine whether or not the differences in quality may affect their conclusions, or guide how they analyze the data and interpret the findings ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Ascribing quality scores to each primary study or considering through domain-based evaluations which study components have or have not been designed and executed appropriately makes it possible to reflect on the extent to which the selected study addresses possible biases and maximizes validity ( Shea et al., 2009 ). Extracting data: The following step involves gathering or extracting applicable information from each primary study included in the sample and deciding what is relevant to the problem of interest ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Indeed, the type of data that should be recorded mainly depends on the initial research questions ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ). However, important information may also be gathered about how, when, where and by whom the primary study was conducted, the research design and methods, or qualitative/quantitative results ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Analyzing and synthesizing data : As a final step, members of the review team must collate, summarize, aggregate, organize, and compare the evidence 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 make sense of extant knowledge on a given topic. There exist several methods and techniques for synthesizing quantitative (e.g., frequency analysis, meta-analysis) and qualitative (e.g., grounded theory, narrative analysis, meta-ethnography) evidence ( Dixon-Woods, Agarwal, Jones, Young, & Sutton, 2005 ; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

9.3. 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 of primary research studies conducted on a particular topic. Our classification scheme is largely inspired from Paré and colleagues’ (2015) typology. Below we present and illustrate those review types that we feel are central to the growth and development of the eHealth domain.

9.3.1. Narrative Reviews

The narrative review is the “traditional” way of reviewing the extant literature and is skewed towards a qualitative interpretation of prior knowledge ( 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 ; Green et al., 2006 ). Instead, the review team often undertakes the task of accumulating and synthesizing the literature to demonstrate the value of a particular point of view ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ). As such, reviewers may selectively ignore or limit the attention paid to certain studies in order to make a point. In this rather unsystematic approach, the selection of information from primary articles is subjective, lacks explicit criteria for inclusion and can lead to biased interpretations or inferences ( Green 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 above, its primary purpose is to provide the reader with a comprehensive background for understanding current knowledge and highlighting the significance of new research ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Faculty like to use narrative reviews in the classroom because they are often more up to date than textbooks, provide a single source for students to reference, and expose students to peer-reviewed literature ( Green et al., 2006 ). For researchers, narrative reviews can inspire research ideas by identifying gaps or inconsistencies in a body of knowledge, thus helping researchers to determine research questions or formulate hypotheses. Importantly, narrative reviews can also be used as 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 rigour in narrative reviews that will elucidate common pitfalls and bring changes into their publication standards. Information systems researchers, among others, have contributed to advancing knowledge on how to structure 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 conduct each step of the review process. As another methodological contribution, vom Brocke et al. (2009) offered a series of guidelines for conducting literature reviews, with a particular focus on how to search and extract the relevant body of knowledge. Last, Bandara, Miskon, and Fielt (2011) proposed a structured, predefined and tool-supported method to identify primary studies within a feasible scope, extract relevant content from identified articles, synthesize and analyze the findings, and effectively write and present the results of the literature review. We highly recommend that prospective authors of narrative reviews consult these useful sources before embarking on their work.

Darlow and Wen (2015) provide a good example of a highly structured narrative review in the eHealth field. These authors synthesized published articles that describe the development process of mobile health ( m-health ) interventions for patients’ cancer care self-management. As in most narrative reviews, the scope of the research questions being investigated is broad: (a) how development of these systems are carried out; (b) which methods are used to investigate these systems; and (c) what conclusions can be drawn as a result of the development of these systems. To provide clear answers to these questions, a literature search was conducted on six electronic databases and Google Scholar . The search was performed using several terms and free text words, combining them in an appropriate manner. Four inclusion and three exclusion criteria were utilized during the screening process. 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 stage of study selection. In terms of contributions, this review provides a series of practical recommendations for m-health intervention development.

9.3.2. Descriptive or Mapping Reviews

The primary goal of a descriptive review is to determine the extent to which a body of knowledge in a particular research 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 procedure, 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 study certain characteristics of interest, such as publication year, research methods, data collection techniques, and direction or strength of research outcomes (e.g., positive, negative, or non-significant) in the form 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 attempt to identify any interpretable trends or draw overall conclusions about the merits of existing conceptualizations, propositions, methods or findings ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In doing so, a descriptive review may claim that its findings represent the state of the art in a particular 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) as mapping reviews . Like descriptive reviews, the research questions are generic and usually relate to publication patterns and trends. There is no preconceived plan to systematically review all of the literature although this can be done. Instead, researchers often present studies that are representative of most 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 informatics literature over a 20-year period (1987 to 2006). To achieve this ambitious objective, the authors performed a bibliometric analysis of medical informatics citations indexed in medline using publication trends, journal frequencies, impact factors, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) term frequencies, and characteristics of citations. Findings revealed that there were over 77,000 medical informatics articles published during the covered period in numerous journals and that the average annual growth rate was 12%. The MeSH term analysis also suggested a strong interdisciplinary trend. Finally, average impact scores increased over time 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 discipline (DeShazo et al., 2009).

9.3.3. 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 research gaps in the extant literature ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In line with their main objective, scoping reviews usually conclude with the presentation of a detailed research agenda for future works along with potential implications for both practice and research.

Unlike narrative and descriptive reviews, the whole point of scoping the field is to be as comprehensive as possible, including grey literature (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). Inclusion and exclusion criteria must be established to help researchers eliminate studies that are not aligned with the research questions. It is also recommended that at least two independent coders review abstracts yielded from the search strategy and then the full articles for study selection ( Daudt et al., 2013 ). The synthesized evidence from content or thematic analysis is relatively easy to present in tabular form (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

One of the most highly cited scoping reviews in the eHealth domain was published by 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. Seven databases were searched from 1985 to March 2010. Several search terms relating to phr s were used during this process. Two authors independently screened titles and abstracts to determine inclusion status. A second screen of full-text articles, again by two independent members of the research team, ensured that the studies described phr s. All in all, 130 articles met the criteria and their data were extracted manually into a database. The authors concluded that although there is a large amount of survey, observational, cohort/panel, and anecdotal evidence of phr benefits and satisfaction for patients, more research is needed to evaluate the results of phr implementations. Their in-depth analysis of the literature signalled that there is little solid evidence from randomized controlled trials or other studies through the use of phr s. 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 can play a beneficial role in supporting patient self-management ( Archer et al., 2011 ).

9.3.4. Forms of Aggregative Reviews

Healthcare providers, practitioners, and policy-makers are nowadays overwhelmed with large volumes of information, 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 expect that all these disparate actors will have the time, skills, and necessary resources to identify the available 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.e., 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 particular topic of interest to support evidence-based practice ( Liberati et al., 2009 ). They adhere closely to explicit scientific principles ( Liberati et al., 2009 ) and rigorous methodological guidelines (Higgins & Green, 2008) aimed at reducing random and systematic errors that can lead to deviations from the truth in results or inferences. The use of explicit methods allows systematic reviews to aggregate a large body of research evidence, assess whether effects or relationships are in the same direction and of the same general magnitude, explain possible inconsistencies between study results, and determine the strength of the overall evidence for every outcome of interest based on the quality of included studies and the general consistency among them ( Cook, 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 grey literature sources, without any language restrictions.
• Selecting studies, extracting data, and assessing risk of bias in a duplicate manner using two independent reviewers to avoid random or systematic errors in the process.
• Analyzing data using quantitative or qualitative methods.
• Presenting results in summary of findings tables.
• Interpreting results and drawing conclusions.

Many systematic reviews, but not all, use statistical methods to combine the results of independent studies into a single quantitative estimate or summary effect size. Known as meta-analyses , these reviews use specific data extraction and statistical techniques (e.g., network, frequentist, or Bayesian meta-analyses) to calculate from each study by outcome of interest an effect size along with a confidence interval that reflects the degree of uncertainty behind the point estimate of effect ( Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009 ; Deeks, Higgins, & Altman, 2008 ). Subsequently, they use fixed or random-effects analysis models to combine the results of the included studies, assess statistical heterogeneity, and calculate a weighted average of the effect estimates from the different studies, taking into account their sample sizes. The summary effect 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 across all studies included in the systematic review. By statistically combining data from multiple studies, meta-analyses 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 phone 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 attendance 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 rct s 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 contained in the included studies. Study selection, 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 rct s involving 6,615 participants were pooled into meta-analyses to calculate the magnitude of effects that mobile text message reminders have on the rate of attendance at healthcare appointments compared to no reminders and phone 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 there is extensive clinical heterogeneity between the included studies or variation in measurement tools, comparisons, or outcomes of interest. In these cases, systematic reviews can use 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 form of review is known as 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 use 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 ( www.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) subsequently carried out study selection, 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 use of meta-analytic methods. To this end, the authors resorted to using narrative analysis and synthesis to describe the effectiveness of handheld computers on accessing information 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 health informatics has increased considerably. Systematic reviews with discordant findings can cause great confusion and make it difficult for decision-makers to interpret the review-level evidence ( Moher, 2013 ). Therefore, there is a growing need for appraisal and synthesis of prior systematic reviews to ensure that decision-making is constantly informed by the best available accumulated evidence. Umbrella reviews , also known as overviews of systematic reviews, are tertiary types of evidence synthesis that aim to accomplish this; that is, they aim to compare and contrast 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. However, the unit of analysis in umbrella reviews is the systematic review rather than the primary study ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Unlike systematic reviews that have a narrow focus of inquiry, umbrella reviews focus on broader research topics for which there are several potential interventions ( Smith, Devane, Begley, & Clarke, 2011 ). A recent umbrella review on the effects of home telemonitoring interventions for patients with heart failure critically appraised, compared, and synthesized evidence from 15 systematic reviews to investigate which types of home telemonitoring technologies and forms of interventions are more effective in reducing mortality and hospital admissions ( Kitsiou, Paré, & Jaana, 2015 ).

9.3.5. Realist Reviews

Realist reviews are theory-driven interpretative reviews developed to inform, enhance, or supplement conventional systematic reviews by making sense of heterogeneous evidence about complex interventions applied in diverse contexts in a way that informs policy decision-making ( 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 see whether a new treatment or intervention does improve outcomes. However, many argue that it is not possible to establish such direct causal links between interventions and outcomes in fields such as social policy, management, and information systems where for any intervention there is unlikely to be a regular or consistent outcome ( Oates, 2011 ; Pawson, 2006 ; Rousseau, Manning, & Denyer, 2008 ).

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

The main objective pursued in the realist review conducted by 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, most importantly, how variations in outcomes can be explained. The research team started with an exploratory review of background documents and research studies to identify ways in which patient portals may contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The authors identified six main ways which represent “educated guesses” to be tested against the data in the evaluation studies. These studies were identified through a formal and systematic search in four databases between 2003 and 2013. Two members of the research team selected the articles using a pre-established list of inclusion and exclusion criteria and following a two-step procedure. The authors then extracted data from the selected articles and created several tables, one for each outcome category. They organized information to bring forward 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 interest to reveal strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, controversies, inconsistencies, and/or other important issues 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 account of the research that has been done in a particular area of interest, and assess its credibility by using appraisal instruments or critical interpretive methods. In this way, critical reviews attempt to constructively inform other scholars about the weaknesses of prior research 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 identify eligible reviews and subsequently used a validated instrument to conduct an in-depth quality appraisal. Results indicate that the majority of systematic reviews in this particular 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 future reviews on home telemonitoring.

9.4. 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 one review type from another. It also includes key references to methodological guidelines and useful sources that can be used by eHealth scholars and researchers for planning and developing reviews.

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

As shown in Table 9.1 , each review type addresses different kinds of research questions or objectives, which subsequently define and dictate the methods and approaches that need to be used to achieve the overarching goal(s) of the review. For example, in the case of narrative reviews, there is greater flexibility in searching and synthesizing articles ( Green et al., 2006 ). Researchers are often relatively free to use a diversity of approaches to search, identify, and select relevant scientific articles, describe their operational characteristics, present how the individual 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 & Green, 2008). Some reviews are exploratory in nature (e.g., scoping/mapping reviews), whereas others may be conducted to discover 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 order to select the most appropriate type of review, it is critical to know before embarking on a review project, why the research synthesis is conducted and what type of methods are best aligned with the pursued goals.

9.5. Concluding Remarks

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

We must stress that this classification scheme does not privilege any specific type of review as being of higher quality than another ( Paré et al., 2015 ). As explained above, each type of review has its own strengths and limitations. Having said that, we realize that the methodological rigour of any review — be it qualitative, quantitative or mixed — is a critical aspect that should be 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 process and steps, which is facilitated by a comprehensive documentation of the literature search process, extraction, coding and analysis performed in the review. Whether the search is comprehensive or not, whether it involves a methodical approach for data extraction and synthesis or not, it is important that the review documents in an explicit and transparent manner the steps and approach that were used in the process of its development. Next, validity characterizes the degree to which the review process was conducted appropriately. It goes beyond documentation and reflects decisions related to the selection of the sources, the search terms used, the period of time 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 article is reflected by the explicitness of its methods (i.e., transparency) and the soundness of the approach 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 various types of review articles.

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

• Ammenwerth E., de Keizer N. An inventory of evaluation studies of information technology in health care. Trends in evaluation research, 1982-2002. International Journal of Medical Informatics. 2004; 44 (1):44–56. [ PubMed : 15778794 ]
• Anderson S., Allen P., Peckham S., Goodwin N. Asking the right questions: scoping studies in the commissioning of research on the organisation and delivery of health services. Health Research Policy and Systems. 2008; 6 (7):1–12. [ PMC free article : PMC2500008 ] [ PubMed : 18613961 ] [ CrossRef ]
• Archer N., Fevrier-Thomas U., Lokker C., McKibbon K. A., Straus S.E. Personal health records: a scoping review. Journal of American Medical Informatics Association. 2011; 18 (4):515–522. [ PMC free article : PMC3128401 ] [ PubMed : 21672914 ]
• Arksey H., O’Malley L. Scoping studies: towards a methodological framework. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. 2005; 8 (1):19–32.
• A systematic, tool-supported method for conducting literature reviews in information systems. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on Information Systems ( ecis 2011); June 9 to 11; Helsinki, Finland. 2011.
• Baumeister R. F., Leary M.R. Writing narrative literature reviews. Review of General Psychology. 1997; 1 (3):311–320.
• Becker L. A., Oxman A.D. In: Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions. Higgins J. P. T., Green S., editors. Hoboken, nj : John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2008. Overviews of reviews; pp. 607–631.
• Borenstein M., Hedges L., Higgins J., Rothstein H. Introduction to meta-analysis. Hoboken, nj : John Wiley & Sons Inc; 2009.
• Cook D. J., Mulrow C. D., Haynes B. Systematic reviews: Synthesis of best evidence for clinical decisions. Annals of Internal Medicine. 1997; 126 (5):376–380. [ PubMed : 9054282 ]
• Cooper H., Hedges L.V. In: The handbook of research synthesis and meta-analysis. 2nd ed. Cooper H., Hedges L. V., Valentine J. C., editors. New York: Russell Sage Foundation; 2009. Research synthesis as a scientific process; pp. 3–17.
• Cooper H. M. Organizing knowledge syntheses: A taxonomy of literature reviews. Knowledge in Society. 1988; 1 (1):104–126.
• Cronin P., Ryan F., Coughlan M. Undertaking a literature review: a step-by-step approach. British Journal of Nursing. 2008; 17 (1):38–43. [ PubMed : 18399395 ]
• Darlow S., Wen K.Y. Development testing of mobile health interventions for cancer patient self-management: A review. Health Informatics Journal. 2015 (online before print). [ PubMed : 25916831 ] [ CrossRef ]
• Daudt H. M., van Mossel C., Scott S.J. Enhancing the scoping study methodology: a large, inter-professional team’s experience with Arksey and O’Malley’s framework. bmc Medical Research Methodology. 2013; 13 :48. [ PMC free article : PMC3614526 ] [ PubMed : 23522333 ] [ CrossRef ]
• Davies P. The relevance of systematic reviews to educational policy and practice. Oxford Review of Education. 2000; 26 (3-4):365–378.
• Deeks J. J., Higgins J. P. T., Altman D.G. In: Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions. Higgins J. P. T., Green S., editors. Hoboken, nj : John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2008. Analysing data and undertaking meta-analyses; pp. 243–296.
• Deshazo J. P., Lavallie D. L., Wolf F.M. Publication trends in the medical informatics literature: 20 years of “Medical Informatics” in mesh . bmc Medical Informatics and Decision Making. 2009; 9 :7. [ PMC free article : PMC2652453 ] [ PubMed : 19159472 ] [ CrossRef ]
• Dixon-Woods M., Agarwal S., Jones D., Young B., Sutton A. Synthesising qualitative and quantitative evidence: a review of possible methods. Journal of Health Services Research and Policy. 2005; 10 (1):45–53. [ PubMed : 15667704 ]
• Finfgeld-Connett D., Johnson E.D. Literature search strategies for conducting knowledge-building and theory-generating qualitative systematic reviews. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 2013; 69 (1):194–204. [ PMC free article : PMC3424349 ] [ PubMed : 22591030 ]
• Grady B., Myers K. M., Nelson E. L., Belz N., Bennett L., Carnahan L. … Guidelines Working Group. Evidence-based practice for telemental health. Telemedicine Journal and E Health. 2011; 17 (2):131–148. [ PubMed : 21385026 ]
• Green B. N., Johnson C. D., Adams A. Writing narrative literature reviews for peer-reviewed journals: secrets of the trade. Journal of Chiropractic Medicine. 2006; 5 (3):101–117. [ PMC free article : PMC2647067 ] [ PubMed : 19674681 ]
• Greenhalgh T., Wong G., Westhorp G., Pawson R. Protocol–realist and meta-narrative evidence synthesis: evolving standards ( rameses ). bmc Medical Research Methodology. 2011; 11 :115. [ PMC free article : PMC3173389 ] [ PubMed : 21843376 ]
• Gurol-Urganci I., de Jongh T., Vodopivec-Jamsek V., Atun R., Car J. Mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments. Cochrane Database System Review. 2013; 12 cd 007458. [ PMC free article : PMC6485985 ] [ PubMed : 24310741 ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hart C. Doing a literature review: Releasing the social science research imagination. London: SAGE Publications; 1998.
• Higgins J. P. T., Green S., editors. Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions: Cochrane book series. Hoboken, nj : Wiley-Blackwell; 2008.
• Jesson J., Matheson L., Lacey F.M. Doing your literature review: traditional and systematic techniques. Los Angeles & London: SAGE Publications; 2011.
• King W. R., He J. Understanding the role and methods of meta-analysis in IS research. Communications of the Association for Information Systems. 2005; 16 :1.
• Kirkevold M. Integrative nursing research — an important strategy to further the development of nursing science and nursing practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 1997; 25 (5):977–984. [ PubMed : 9147203 ]
• Kitchenham B., Charters S. ebse Technical Report Version 2.3. Keele & Durham. uk : Keele University & University of Durham; 2007. Guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering.
• Kitsiou S., Paré G., Jaana M. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of home telemonitoring interventions for patients with chronic diseases: a critical assessment of their methodological quality. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2013; 15 (7):e150. [ PMC free article : PMC3785977 ] [ PubMed : 23880072 ]
• Kitsiou S., Paré G., Jaana M. Effects of home telemonitoring interventions on patients with chronic heart failure: an overview of systematic reviews. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2015; 17 (3):e63. [ PMC free article : PMC4376138 ] [ PubMed : 25768664 ]
• Levac D., Colquhoun H., O’Brien K. K. Scoping studies: advancing the methodology. Implementation Science. 2010; 5 (1):69. [ PMC free article : PMC2954944 ] [ PubMed : 20854677 ]
• Levy Y., Ellis T.J. A systems approach to conduct an effective literature review in support of information systems research. Informing Science. 2006; 9 :181–211.
• Liberati A., Altman D. G., Tetzlaff J., Mulrow C., Gøtzsche P. C., Ioannidis J. P. A. et al. Moher D. The prisma statement for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses of studies that evaluate health care interventions: Explanation and elaboration. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2009; 151 (4):W-65. [ PubMed : 19622512 ]
• Lyden J. R., Zickmund S. L., Bhargava T. D., Bryce C. L., Conroy M. B., Fischer G. S. et al. McTigue K. M. Implementing health information technology in a patient-centered manner: Patient experiences with an online evidence-based lifestyle intervention. Journal for Healthcare Quality. 2013; 35 (5):47–57. [ PubMed : 24004039 ]
• Mickan S., Atherton H., Roberts N. W., Heneghan C., Tilson J.K. Use of handheld computers in clinical practice: a systematic review. bmc Medical Informatics and Decision Making. 2014; 14 :56. [ PMC free article : PMC4099138 ] [ PubMed : 24998515 ]
• Moher D. The problem of duplicate systematic reviews. British Medical Journal. 2013; 347 (5040) [ PubMed : 23945367 ] [ CrossRef ]
• Montori V. M., Wilczynski N. L., Morgan D., Haynes R. B., Hedges T. Systematic reviews: a cross-sectional study of location and citation counts. bmc Medicine. 2003; 1 :2. [ PMC free article : PMC281591 ] [ PubMed : 14633274 ]
• Mulrow C. D. The medical review article: state of the science. Annals of Internal Medicine. 1987; 106 (3):485–488. [ PubMed : 3813259 ] [ CrossRef ]
• Evidence-based information systems: A decade later. Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems ; 2011. Retrieved from http://aisel ​.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent ​.cgi?article ​=1221&context ​=ecis2011 .
• Okoli C., Schabram K. A guide to conducting a systematic literature review of information systems research. ssrn Electronic Journal. 2010
• Otte-Trojel T., de Bont A., Rundall T. G., van de Klundert J. How outcomes are achieved through patient portals: a realist review. Journal of American Medical Informatics Association. 2014; 21 (4):751–757. [ PMC free article : PMC4078283 ] [ PubMed : 24503882 ]
• Paré G., Trudel M.-C., Jaana M., Kitsiou S. Synthesizing information systems knowledge: A typology of literature reviews. Information & Management. 2015; 52 (2):183–199.
• Patsopoulos N. A., Analatos A. A., Ioannidis J.P. A. Relative citation impact of various study designs in the health sciences. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2005; 293 (19):2362–2366. [ PubMed : 15900006 ]
• Paul M. M., Greene C. M., Newton-Dame R., Thorpe L. E., Perlman S. E., McVeigh K. H., Gourevitch M.N. The state of population health surveillance using electronic health records: A narrative review. Population Health Management. 2015; 18 (3):209–216. [ PubMed : 25608033 ]
• Pawson R. Evidence-based policy: a realist perspective. London: SAGE Publications; 2006.
• Pawson R., Greenhalgh T., Harvey G., Walshe K. Realist review—a new method of systematic review designed for complex policy interventions. Journal of Health Services Research & Policy. 2005; 10 (Suppl 1):21–34. [ PubMed : 16053581 ]
• Petersen K., Vakkalanka S., Kuzniarz L. Guidelines for conducting systematic mapping studies in software engineering: An update. Information and Software Technology. 2015; 64 :1–18.
• Petticrew M., Roberts H. Systematic reviews in the social sciences: A practical guide. Malden, ma : Blackwell Publishing Co; 2006.
• Rousseau D. M., Manning J., Denyer D. Evidence in management and organizational science: Assembling the field’s full weight of scientific knowledge through syntheses. The Academy of Management Annals. 2008; 2 (1):475–515.
• Rowe F. What literature review is not: diversity, boundaries and recommendations. European Journal of Information Systems. 2014; 23 (3):241–255.
• Shea B. J., Hamel C., Wells G. A., Bouter L. M., Kristjansson E., Grimshaw J. et al. Boers M. amstar is a reliable and valid measurement tool to assess the methodological quality of systematic reviews. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 2009; 62 (10):1013–1020. [ PubMed : 19230606 ]
• Shepperd S., Lewin S., Straus S., Clarke M., Eccles M. P., Fitzpatrick R. et al. Sheikh A. Can we systematically review studies that evaluate complex interventions? PLoS Medicine. 2009; 6 (8):e1000086. [ PMC free article : PMC2717209 ] [ PubMed : 19668360 ]
• Silva B. M., Rodrigues J. J., de la Torre Díez I., López-Coronado M., Saleem K. Mobile-health: A review of current state in 2015. Journal of Biomedical Informatics. 2015; 56 :265–272. [ PubMed : 26071682 ]
• Smith V., Devane D., Begley C., Clarke M. Methodology in conducting a systematic review of systematic reviews of healthcare interventions. bmc Medical Research Methodology. 2011; 11 (1):15. [ PMC free article : PMC3039637 ] [ PubMed : 21291558 ]
• Sylvester A., Tate M., Johnstone D. Beyond synthesis: re-presenting heterogeneous research literature. Behaviour & Information Technology. 2013; 32 (12):1199–1215.
• Templier M., Paré G. A framework for guiding and evaluating literature reviews. Communications of the Association for Information Systems. 2015; 37 (6):112–137.
• Thomas J., Harden A. Methods for the thematic synthesis of qualitative research in systematic reviews. bmc Medical Research Methodology. 2008; 8 (1):45. [ PMC free article : PMC2478656 ] [ PubMed : 18616818 ]
• Reconstructing the giant: on the importance of rigour in documenting the literature search process. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Information Systems ( ecis 2009); Verona, Italy. 2009.
• Webster J., Watson R.T. Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: Writing a literature review. Management Information Systems Quarterly. 2002; 26 (2):11.
• Whitlock E. P., Lin J. S., Chou R., Shekelle P., Robinson K.A. Using existing systematic reviews in complex systematic reviews. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2008; 148 (10):776–782. [ PubMed : 18490690 ]

This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons License, Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0): see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

• Cite this Page Paré G, Kitsiou S. Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews. In: Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.
• PDF version of this title (4.5M)
• Disable Glossary Links

In this Page

• Introduction
• Overview of the Literature Review Process and Steps
• Types of Review Articles and Brief Illustrations
• Concluding Remarks

Related information

• PMC PubMed Central citations
• PubMed Links to PubMed

Recent Activity

• Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews - Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Ev... Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews - Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach

Your browsing activity is empty.

Activity recording is turned off.

Turn recording back on

Connect with NLM

National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20894

Web Policies FOIA HHS Vulnerability Disclosure

Help Accessibility Careers

Graph-Enhanced Prompt Learning for Personalized Review Generation

• Research Paper
• Open access
• Published: 18 June 2024

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Xiaoru Qu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9620-0661 1 ,
• Yifan Wang 2 ,
• Zhao Li 3 &
• Jun Gao 1  

Personalized review generation is significant for e-commerce applications, such as providing explainable recommendation and assisting the composition of reviews. With the success of pre-trained language models (PLMs), prompt learning-based approaches have been employed to handle this task. However, the existing approach neglects the historical user-item interactions as well as the diverse semantics of the reviews (including semantically relevant reviews and semantically irrelevant reviews). In this paper, we propose GRAPA, a graph-enhanced prompt learning approach for personalized review generation. Specifically, GRAPA extracts topic-level information for each review to address the semantic diversity of reviews. Moreover, GRAPA employs a heterogeneous graph neural network (GNN) to explore the collaborative information hidden in historical user-item interactions. User and item representations generated by the GNN module as well as their ID embeddings are used as prompts and fed into a PLM to guide the generation process. To alleviate the interference of semantically irrelevant reviews, GRAPA further proposes a contrastive learning module to distinguish them. Experimental results on public datasets show that GRAPA outperforms existing methods by up to 4.3% in BLEU-4 and 5.4% in ROUGE2-F.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

Personalized review generation aims to generate review texts that users would write about the products based on their preferences [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. This task holds substantial significance within e-commerce, as it not only helps provide detailed explanations during the recommendation process [ 4 , 5 , 6 ] but also serves as a writing assistant when users compose their reviews [ 7 ].

Pre-trained language models (PLMs) [ 8 , 9 , 10 ] have demonstrated notable effectiveness in various natural language processing applications (e.g., text classification [ 11 ] and question answering [ 12 ]). To leverage the power of PLMs, a series of prompt learning-based approaches [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ] have been proposed for different downstream tasks. For personalized review generation, Li et al. [ 17 ] introduced discrete prompts (attribute words linked to the user and item) and soft prompts (user and item representations) to guide the generation process.

However, the existing prompt learning-based approach for personalized review generation lacks the consideration of historical user-item interactions, which could help to generate better prompts. Specifically, a historical user-item interaction means that a user has purchased an item, published a rating score, and written a review about this item before. As we know, similar users may show similar preferences for similar items [ 18 ]. Thus, incorporating the information of similar users/items can help to capture users’ preferences and items’ characteristics.

To fully exploit the high-order collaborative information hidden in the historical user-item interactions, a straightforward solution is to use GNN (graph neural network) to generate better user/item representations and feed them as prompts to PLMs. Nonetheless, the reviews have diverse semantics [ 19 ] since they are posted for different characteristics of the items (e.g., price, service, quality, etc.). Two reviews are semantically relevant if they discuss the same characteristics of items. Considering the diverse semantics of reviews can enhance the modeling of users and items, thus leading to better prompts. In detail,

A real-world example in Amazon Movie dataset. Reviews with different color indicate that they have different topics

Semantically relevant reviews can help generate better prompts. While the reviews employ diverse lexicons, their semantics can be relevant when they focus on the same characteristics of items. Users with similar tastes might be interested in similar item characteristics. So, the inherent correlations of review semantics can provide valuable insight when generating new reviews. For example, in Fig.  1 , \(u_2\) and \(u_3\) both commend the superior media quality of \(i_2\) ( R 3 and R 5), which indicates that \(u_2\) and \(u_3\) have similar tastes. Thus, when generating \(u_3\) ’s review on \(i_1\) , \(u_2\) ’s review on \(i_1\) could be helpful.

Semantically irrelevant reviews may introduce interference. Reviews have diverse semantics. If we use reviews with irrelevant semantics to generate prompts, the generated review may be inappropriate. As shown in Fig.  1 , R 1 highlights the significance of \(i_1\) ’s director’s role. When inferring \(u_3\) ’s preference for \(i_1\) (i.e., R 4, which emphasizes the exceptional quality of \(i_1\) within the horror genre), R 1 may introduce interference since the characteristic that R 1 focuses on differs from R 4.

To this end, we propose GRAPA, a GRAph-enhanced Prompt leArning framework for personalized review generation. The main idea of GRAPA is to fully mine the hidden information in the user-item interaction graph, so as to generate better prompts and feed the prompts into PLMs for personalized review generation. First, we extract topic information for each review based on clustering techniques to model the diverse semantics of reviews. We categorize the reviews into different groups based on their semantics and select a set of keywords (the most representative words) for each group. These words also exist in the PLM’s vocabulary. We then obtain the topic embeddings by averaging the embeddings of their respective keywords from the PLM’s word embedding table. Second, we use a heterogeneous GNN module to explore the high-order collaborative information in the user-item bipartite graph. Specifically, we extract a local enclosing subgraph [ 20 ] for each user-item pair. The GNN module then propagates node embeddings (user and item embeddings) and edge embeddings (topic embeddings) throughout the subgraph structure based on rating-aware parameters. User and item embeddings generated by the GNN (termed graph-induced prompts) and their ID embeddings (termed identity prompts) are fed into the PLM to guide the generation process. Finally, we employ a contrastive learning module [ 21 , 22 ] in the training stage to alleviate the interference introduced by semantically irrelevant reviews. In detail, we treat the reviews on other topics as semantically irrelevant reviews. We map the graph-induced prompts into a hidden representation, bringing it closer to the target review’s topic while distancing it from other topics. Our contributions can be summarized as follows:

We present GRAPA, a graph-enhanced prompt learning framework for personalized review generation. GRAPA employs a heterogeneous GNN to integrate the topic-level semantics and the high-order collaborative information hidden in the user-item interaction graph to generate better prompts for the PLM.

We propose to use contrastive learning to alleviate interference from semantically irrelevant reviews. We map the graph-induced prompts into a hidden representation and bring it closer to the target review’s topic while distancing it from other topics.

Experimental results on public datasets show that GRAPA outperforms existing methods by up to 4.3% in BLEU-4 and 5.4% in ROUGE2-F.

1.1 Paper Organization

We first introduce related work in Sect.  2 . We then present the proposed method in Sect.  3 and report the experimental results in Sect.  4 . We finally conclude the paper in Sect.  5 .

2 Related Work

2.1 personalized review generation.

Personalized review generation [ 1 , 3 , 7 ] is a subfield of Natural Language Generation(NLG) [ 23 , 24 , 25 ] and holds substantial significance in e-commerce. To realize personalized review generation, prevailing methods exploited conditional natural language generation techniques and incorporated user and item IDs to encapsulate individual-specific information. Traditional approaches used Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), such as LSTM [ 26 ] and GRU [ 27 ], as the generator. Moreover, the co-occurrence of user ratings and reviews inherently reflects a consistent expression of their preferences. As a result, several studies proposed to incorporate rating information to enhance the performance of review generation. For example, Dong et al. [ 1 ] proposed to augment the inputs by incorporating ratings. There are also some methods [ 3 , 28 , 29 , 30 ] that adopt a multi-task learning framework, which concurrently tackles the review generation and rating prediction tasks.

Furthermore, to harness the power of transformers [ 31 ], Li et al. [ 2 ] incorporated an untrained transformer for personalized review generation. To leverage the rich semantic knowledge contained in pre-trained language models (PLMs), researchers proposed several prompt learning-based methods in two directions: (1) Extracting attribute words associated with the target (user, item) pair and using attribute words as hard prompts [ 17 , 32 ]. (2) Directly using user/item ID embeddings as soft prompts and designing training strategies to bridge the gap between user/item IDs and the word embeddings of the PLMs [ 17 ].

The methods above ignored the historical user-item interactions, which can naturally form a bipartite graph. Moreover, they did not consider the diverse semantics of reviews. In this work, we incorporate the user-item interaction graph to enhance the prompt generation for personalized review generation and use contrastive learning to alleviate the interference introduced by irrelevant reviews.

2.2 Graph-to-Text Generation

Graph-to-text generation focuses on generating coherent texts based on graphs. AMR-to-text generation [ 33 , 34 , 35 ] and KG-to-text generation [ 36 , 37 , 38 ] are two prevailing tasks, generating natural language texts from Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR) graphs [ 39 ] and knowledge graphs (KG) [ 40 , 41 ]. To incorporate the structure data into the text generator, Konstas et al. [ 33 ] linearized the input graph before feeding it into the Seq2Seq [ 42 ] model. To deal with the loss of structural information caused by linearization, several methods [ 34 , 35 , 36 ] leveraged GNNs to encode the graph structure and feed the result into the Seq2Seq model. On the other side, with the development of PLMs [ 8 , 9 ], researchers proposed several methods to integrate knowledge graph/AMR graph into PLMs in four directions: (1) Transforming graphs into natural languages [ 43 ]. (2) Employing graph masking strategies to make PLMs aware of the graph structure [ 37 , 38 ]. (3) Integrating the structure-aware module into each layer of the PLM [ 44 ]. (4) Leveraging GNNs to generate graph-aware soft prompts to guide the generation process [ 45 ].

However, the scenario above differs from personalized review generation, where the reviews on edges have diverse semantics. If we use irrelevant reviews to guide the generation process, the generated review might be inappropriate.

2.3 Contrastive Learning

Contrastive learning has demonstrated remarkable success in CV [ 46 , 47 ] and NLP [ 48 ]. It can enhance the representation quality by pulling the positive pairs close and pushing the negative pairs apart in the embedding space [ 49 ]. Graph Contrastive Learning (GCL) extended this idea for graph-structured data, aiming to learn discriminative node/graph representations. For example, GRACE [ 50 ] augmented the graph into two views by masking node features and removing edges. It then applied node-level contrastive learning with these two views. GraphCL [ 51 ] designed four types of graph augmentations (i.e., node dropping, edge perturbation, attribute masking, and subgraph sampling) and then employed graph-level contrastive learning with the augmented graphs. Moreover, several methods [ 52 , 53 ] employed prototypical contrastive learning to consider the relevance of nodes’/graphs’ semantics. They clustered nodes/graphs based on their semantics and contrasted each node/graph representation with the centroids of the clusters.

In this work, we adopt contrastive learning to alleviate the interference introduced by semantically irrelevant reviews.

2.4 Prompt Learning

Pretrained language models are trained with masssive amount of unstructured data and have shown to be powerful in various natural language processing tasks. Prompt learning is an emerging strategy that leverages the power of pre-trained language models to infer desired outputs by modifying input data with strategically designed prompts. Prompt learning has been applied to many senarios, such as relation extraction [ 54 ], text classification [ 55 ], question answering [ 56 ], text generation [ 57 ], and so on. It is different from traditional supervised learning where models are trained to predict an output directly from an input. Instead, some prefix tokens (i.e., prompts) are injected to the input as context information for the generation.

Exist prompt learning methods can be classified into four categories with respect to the tuning strategies [ 58 ]. (1) Tuning-free prompting [ 59 , 60 ]. PLMs are directly used without adjusting model parameters. The strategy is applicable to zero-shot and few-shot learning scenarios. (2) Fixed-LM prompt learning [ 61 , 62 ]. In these works, the parameters of PLMs remain static, while trainable prompt embeddings are introduced to adapt the model to downstream tasks. (3) Fixed-prompt LM tuning [ 55 , 63 ]. These works adjust the parameters of the PLMs while employing fixed prompt embeddings. (4) Prompt + LM tuning [ 64 , 65 ]. In these works, both the parameters of PLMs and the prompt embeddings are trainable.

In this section, we present the problem definition of personalized review generation and introduce our proposed method.

3.1 Problem Definition

The goal of personalized review generation is to generate a review that a user would write for a target item, which is particularly useful in e-commerce scenarios.

The input of personalized review generation includes a user ID set U , an item ID set I , a rating score set R , a review text set X , and the corresponding historical user-item interactions D . Each record \(\langle u,i,r,x \rangle \in D\) represents that a user \(u \in U\) posted a review \(x \in X\) on an item \(i \in I\) with a rating score \(r \in R\) . Then, for a given (user, item) pair \(\langle u_k\) , \(i_k \rangle\) , the goal of personalized review generation is to generate a possible review \(\hat{x}_k\) that can maximize the following joint probability:

Here S is the sequence length, \(\hat{x}^j_k\) is the \(j_{th}\) token of the generated sequence, \(\hat{x}^{<j}_k\) is the preceding tokens of \(\hat{x}^j_k\) , and \(\theta\) denotes the model parameters.

To better present the paper, we summarize the notations used in Table  1 .

3.2 The GRAPA Framework

In this section, we first introduce the overview of GRAPA and then present the three key components in detail.

3.2.1 Overview

GRAPA is a graph-enhanced prompt learning framework for personalized review generation, which considers both the historical user-item interactions and the diverse semantics of reviews. We next introduce the overview of GRAPA according to Fig.  2 .

Model architecture of GRAPA

Training Procedure of GRAPA

Topic Extraction To model the diverse semantics of reviews, we extract topic representation for each review by clustering them into different groups based on their semantics. We then select a set of keywords based on the clustering result for each topic and obtain the topic embeddings by averaging the embeddings of their keywords from the PLM’s word embedding table (PLM Dictionary in Fig.  2 ). In this way, the topic embeddings are aligned with the PLM’s word embedding table. A detailed description can be found in Sect.  3.2.2 .

Graph Representation Learning We first build a user-item bipartite graph, where users/items are nodes and reviews are edges. Given a target (user, item) pair \(\langle u_k,i_k\rangle\) , we extract an enclosing subgraph to include the users/items/reviews that are close to \(u_k\) and \(i_k\) . We then use a heterogeneous GNN to encode the collaborative information and the topic information within the subgraph to generate the graph-induced prompts (i.e., \(g_{u_k}\) and \(g_{i_k}\) in Fig.  2 ). A detailed description can be found in Sect.  3.2.3 .

Contrastive Learning Module As discussed in Fig.  1 , semantically irrelevant reviews in the graph may introduce interference if we use them to generate reviews. As a result, we use contrastive learning to mitigate the interference here. The contrastive learning module takes the graph-induced prompts and the topic representations as input. It adjusts the values of \(g_{u_k}\) and \(g_{i_k}\) by mapping their concatenation into a hidden representation and minimizing its distance to the topic of the target review while maximizing its distances to other topics. A detailed description can be found in Sect.  3.2.4 .

Rating Prediction Module Apart from the graph-induced prompts, we also leverage the user/item ID embeddings as identity prompts to exploit the personal information of users and items (i.e., user preferences and item characteristics). To further enhance the quality of identity prompts, we incorporate a rating prediction loss as a regularization term as follows:

Here, identity prompt \(PI_k\) consists of the user’s ID embedding \(e_{u_k}\) and the item’s ID embedding \(e_{i_k}\) . \(MLP(\cdot )\) stands for Multi-Layer Perceptron.

Generation Module For each target (user, item) pair \(\langle u_k,i_k\rangle\) , GRAPA tokenizes the review text into a sequence \(x_k=[x_k^1,x_k^2,\cdots ,x_k^S]\) with length S . At each step during training, GRAPA prepends the review text with the generated prompts (i.e., the graph-induced prompts and the identity prompts) to guide the generation. The objective is to minimize the negative log-likelihood (NLL) loss as follows:

Here \(P_k\) is the concatenation of the graph-induced prompts (i.e., \(g_{u_k}\) and \(g_{i_k}\) ) and the identity prompts (i.e., \(e_{u_k}\) and \(e_{i_k}\) ), c is the number of reviews in the training set, and S is the sequence length.

End-to-End Training Process A formal description of the end-to-end training process is presented in Algorithm 1. The final objective \({\mathcal {L}}\) is defined as:

Here \(\lambda\) is a hyper-parameter to balance the losses, \(L_{con}\) is the contrastive learning loss defined in Sect.  3.2.4 .

3.2.2 Topic Extraction

To model the semantic relevance of the reviews, we extract the topic information by clustering the reviews based on their semantics. In detail, we use BERTopic [ 66 ] to extract the topic information. First, we use a pre-trained BERT model to obtain the review embeddings. Second, we categorize the reviews into p distinct groups using KMeans++ [ 67 ] based on their embeddings. Reviews in the same group share the same topic. Finally, we use c-TF-IDF [ 66 ] to compute the importance of words in each group and select the top q most representative words as keywords for each topic.

In this case, we obtain a topic ID for each review. The topic ID is an integer ranging from 1 to p . And we obtain a keyword table \(T^{p \times q}\) to represent the topics, where the j -th row \([t_{j1},t_{j2},\cdots ,t_{jq}]\) denotes the top q most representative keywords for topic j .

To further align the topic embeddings with the PLM’s semantic space, we initialize the value of topic embeddings using the representations of the corresponding keywords from the PLM. Suppose the word embedding table of the PLM is \({\textbf {M}}\) , then the embedding of topic j is computed as the average of the corresponding word embeddings retrieved from \({\textbf {M}}\) :

Here \(E_T\) denotes the topic embedding matrix. \(E_T\) will be updated synchronously with the PLM’s word embedding table. In this way, the topic embeddings are aligned with the rich semantic knowledge within the PLM.

3.2.3 Graph Representation Learning

In this section, we first present the graph construction and then describe the the GNN propagation process in detail.

Graph Construction We first build a user-item bipartite graph with users/items as nodes and reviews as edges. Then, for each target (user, item) pair \(\langle u_k,i_k\rangle\) , we extract an \(\eta\) -hop enclosing subgraph around them, where \(\eta\) is a predefined threshold. For the subgraph, we include \(u_k\) , \(i_k\) , and their neighbors with distances to either of them not exceeding \(\eta\) as its node set. We further include all edges whose source and target both exist in the node set. Note that the review \(x_k\) on \(\langle u_k,i_k \rangle\) is the target to generate and does not exist in the subgraph. We denote the extracted subgraph as \(G_{u_k,i_k}\) .

GNN Propagation We use a L -layer GNN module to propagate the node embeddings and edge embeddings. Suppose the user/item ID embedding matrices are \(E_U \in {\mathbb {R}}^{|U|\times d}\) and \(E_I \in {\mathbb {R}}^{|I|\times d}\) , where d is the dimension of the embeddings. Moreover, we denote the user/item/edge embeddings output by the l -th layer as \({\textbf {h}}^{(l)}_u\) , \({\textbf {h}}^{(l)}_i\) and \({\textbf {h}}^{(l)}_{ui}\) . We next present the initialization of user/item/edge embeddings and the propagation process as follows:

Initialization of user/item/edge embeddings \(E_U\) and \(E_I\) are randomly initialized. We employ the user/item ID embeddings as the initial node embeddings, and the topic embeddings as the initial edge embeddings. For each \(\langle u, i \rangle\) , we have the initial user/item/edge embeddings as follows:

Here a is the topic ID of the review on edge \(\langle u, i \rangle\) .

Updating user embeddings For each user u , we first aggregate the information from its neighborhood. We define the set of u ’s neighbors as \({\textbf {N}}_u\) . For each neighboring item \(i \in {\textbf {N}}_u\) , we incorporate the information propagated from the item i and the edge \(\langle u, i \rangle\) :

Here \(r_{ui}\) is the rating score on edge \(\langle u, i \rangle\) . \({\textbf {W}}^{(l-1)}_{UE;r_{ui}} \in {\mathbb {R}}^{d\times d_h}\) is a rating-aware trainable parameter matrix with respect to the rating score \(r_{ui}\) to transform the edge embeddings.

\({\textbf {W}}^{(l-1)}_{UI} \in {\mathbb {R}}^{d\times d_h}\) is the trainable parameter matrix to transform the embeddings of the neighboring items.

\(d_h\) is the hidden size. The symbol \(\oplus\) denotes concatenation and \(\sigma (\cdot )\) is the activation function.

Then we combine the self information of user u with the information aggregated from its neighborhood:

Here \({\textbf {W}}_U^{(l-1)} \in {\mathbb {R}}^{(d+2d_h)\times d}\) is the trainable parameter matrix to project the concatenated embeddings to the embedding space of users.

Finally, we use a residual connection [ 68 ] between the combined embedding \(\hat{{\textbf {h}}}^{(l)}_{u}\) and the output of the \((l-1)\) -th layer \({\textbf {h}}^{(l-1)}_{u}\) :

Updating item embeddings For each item i , the embedding updating procedure is similar to that of users. We obtain its embeddings from the output of the l -th layer:

Updating edge embeddings. For the edge between each pair of \(\langle u, i \rangle\) , we aggregate the information from the user u and item i :

Here \({\textbf {W}}^{(l-1)}_{EU} \in {\mathbb {R}}^{d\times d_h}\) and \({\textbf {W}}^{(l-1)}_{EI} \in {\mathbb {R}}^{d\times d_h}\) are trainable parameter matrices to transform the user/item embeddings to the embedding space of edges.

Then we combine the self information of edge \(\langle u, i \rangle\) with the information aggregated from user u and item i :

Here \({\textbf {W}}^{(l-1)}_{E} \in {\mathbb {R}}^{(d+2d_h)\times d}\) is the trainable parameter matrix to map the combined embeddings to the embedding space of edges.

Finally, we use the residual connection the same as in Eq. ( 10 ):

Graph-induced Prompts After applying L layers of message passing, we leverage the target user/item embeddings output by the L -th layer of the GNN as the graph-induced prompts:

3.2.4 Contrastive Learning Module

The smoothing mechanism in the graph neural network may mix the diverse semantics of the reviews, leading to indistinguishable node/edge representations. This may further cause the graph-induced prompts to be indistinguishable and degrade the quality of generated reviews. So, we propose a contrastive learning module to distinguish the graph-induced prompts from different topics. Logically, we pull the representation of the edge \(\langle u_k, i_k \rangle\) closer to the corresponding topic of the ground-truth review while simultaneously pushing it away from other topics.

In detail, we map \(g_{u_k}\) and \(g_{i_k}\) into a hidden representation to manipulate its distances to the topic representations:

\({\textbf {W}}_{g} \in {\mathbb {R}}^{2d\times d}\) is the trainable parameter matrix.

Following the InfoNCE [ 69 ], we define the objective of the contrastive learning module as:

\(\tau\) is the temperature hyperparameter. c is the number of reviews in the training set. \(a_k\) is the extracted topic ID of the ground-truth review \(r_k\) .

4 Experiments

In this section, we first present the experimental setup and compare GRAPA with existing competitors on three public datasets. We also conduct experiments to understand how GRAPA addresses the challenges we discussed, such as ablation study, parameter sensitivity, case study, and visualization analysis.

4.1 Experimental Setup

4.1.1 datasets.

We evaluate GRAPA on three public datasets [ 70 ]: TripAdvisor Footnote 1 (hotel), Amazon Footnote 2 (movies &TV), and Yelp Footnote 3 (restaurant). The statistics of the datasets are presented in Table  2 . Each record in the datasets contains a user ID, an item ID, a rating score ranging from one to five, a review text, an adjective word, and the attribute word (item feature). The adjective and attribute words are extracted from the review between the user and the item using Sentires [ 71 ]. We adopt the same data partitioning strategy as Li et al. [ 17 ], with a ratio of 8:1:1 for train, validation, and test.

4.1.2 Baselines

We compare GRAPA with the following methods:

Methods that do not use user/item IDs directly:

ACMLM [ 32 ] extracts attribute words from the user persona and item profile and feeds the intersection of the attribute words from users and items to a pre-trained BERT [ 72 ] model. The pre-trained BERT then adds attention to the words and predicts masked tokens.

PEPLER-D [ 17 ] extracts attribute words from all reviews that the target user has posted and the target item has been posted on, respectively. Then, it uses the intersection of the attribute words as discrete prompts for a pre-trained GPT-2 [ 10 ] model to generate the target review.

Methods that use user/item IDs as the input:

NRT [ 29 ] takes the user’s and item’s ID embeddings as the input to predict ratings and generates reviews simultaneously. The review generator uses GRU [ 27 ] as the building block.

Att2Seq [ 1 ] employs user ID, item ID, and rating as input attributes, which are then fed into the LSTM-based generator [ 26 ]. An attention layer is further used to distinguish the effect of different attributes when generating each token.

PETER [ 2 ] feeds the user’s and item’s ID embeddings into an unpretrained transformer [ 31 ]. Moreover, it uses a context prediction task to align the semantic space of user/item IDs and tokens.

PEPLER, PEPLER(MLP) and PEPLER(MF) [ 17 ] employ user and item ID embeddings as continuous prompts and feed them into a pre-trained GPT-2 to generate the target review. To bridge the gap between continuous prompts and pre-trained GPT-2, the authors further proposed two training strategies: sequential tunning (PEPLER) and recommendation as regularization. In detail, the regularizers could be multi-layer perceptron and matrix factorization, i.e., PEPLER(MLP) and PEPLER(MF), respectively.

4.1.3 Evaluation Metrics

We compare the performance of GRAPA with all the baselines in terms of text quality and explainability.

For text quality, we adopt BLEU [ 73 ] and ROUGE [ 74 ] to assess the relevance between the generated reviews and the ground truth.

BLEU (Bilingual Evaluation Understudy) computes a precision-based score by measuring the overlap of n-grams between the generated and the reference texts. When the generated texts are short, the precision scores can be inflated. BLEU integrates a brevity penalty to penalize generations shorter than the reference to deal with this issue. We report BLEU-1 and BLEU-4, which focus on unigrams and four-grams.

ROUGE (Recall-Oriented Understudy for Gisting Evaluation) is a set of metrics containing precision, recall, and F1 scores. ROUGE emphasizes recall by measuring the overlap of n-grams between the generated and reference texts. We report ROUGE-1 and ROUGE-2, which focus on unigrams and bigrams.

For explainability, we adopt FMR [ 70 ] (Feature Matching Ratio) to calculate the ratio the generated review contains the item feature following [ 17 ]. We do not include other metrics in [ 17 ] such as FCR (Feature Coverage Ratio), DIV (Feature Diversity), and USR (Unique Sentence Ratio) because these metrics focus on the diversity of attribute words or reviews, while GRAPA aims to generate the most possible reviews that users would write for target items.

FMR calculates the ratio of generated reviews containing the given attribute words as follows:

Here \(f_k\) denotes the given attribute word and \(\hat{x}_k\) represents the generated text. \(\xi\) is a bool function where \(\xi (f_k \in \hat{x}_k)=1\) if \(f_k \in \hat{x}_k\) , 0 otherwise. D is the test set.

4.1.4 Implementation Details

We implement GRAPA in PyTorch Footnote 4 1.13.1. The model is trained using NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090. The batch size is 64. The dimension of embedding is 768. For the GNN module, the maximum number of neighbors is set as 25, and the hidden state size is 64. For the MLP in the rating prediction task, the hidden state size is 400. For topic extraction, the number of clusters in KMeans++ is set as 30. When the size of a cluster is smaller than 1000, we merge it with its nearest neighboring cluster. The number of topics is 22 for TripAdvisor, 19 for Amazon, and 25 for Yelp, respectively. The number of keywords is set to be 10. We use the AdamW optimizer with a learning rate of 0.001, \(\lambda\) as 1e-4 and \(\tau\) as 0.1. In each training epoch, we save the model if it achieves a better ROUGE-1-F on the validation set. We use early stopping with a patience of 5. We use pre-trained GPT-2 [ 10 ] from huggingface Footnote 5 as the review generator and set the maximum sequence length to 20 BPE [ 75 ] (Byte Pair Encoding) tokens following Li et al. [ 17 ].

4.2 Overall Performance

We compare the overall performance of GRAPA with all baseline methods. The experimental results are presented in Table 3 . We can observe the following facts.

First, methods that directly incorporate the user’s and item’s ID embeddings (i.e., NRT, Att2Seq, PETER, PEPLER, and GRAPA) perform better than methods that leverage the intersection of the attribute words associated with the user and item (i.e., ACMLM and PEPLER-D). This indicates that user and item ID embeddings involve more personal information and are important for personalized review generation. Another possible reason is that the intersection of attribute words may contain irrelevant attributes and introduce interference during the generation process, as discussed in Fig.  1 .

Second, for methods that directly employ the user’s and item’s ID embeddings, PLMs (PEPLER and GRAPA) are better backbones than others (e.g., GRU, LSTM, and unpretrained transformers). This is because PLMs capture rich semantic knowledge through training over the large corpora. Furthermore, we can observe that PETER performs better than NRT and Att2Seq. This is consistent with the fact that transformers capture global dependencies within sequences, while GRU and LSTM have limitations in capturing long-range dependencies.

Finally, GRAPA exhibits superior performance compared with all other baselines. For example, the ROUGE1-F score of GRAPA surpasses that of PEPLER(MF) by 3.4%, 4.3%, and 1.4% on Yelp, Amazon and TripAdvisor datasets, respectively. GRAPA performs better because it considers the historical user-item interactions and the diverse semantics of reviews, as discussed in Sect.  3 . Specifically, GRAPA extracts topic information for each review and designs a heterogeneous GNN module to exploit the high-order collaborative information in the user-item bipartite graph. Moreover, GRAPA proposes a contrastive learning module to alleviate the interference from semantically irrelevant reviews within the graph. We also notice that GRAPA does not achieve the best performance on ROUGE1-P and ROUGE2-P on the Amazon and TripAdvisor datasets. This is explainable—The calculation of ROUGE’s precision scores does not consider the brevity penalty. The ROUGE-P scores could be high even when the generated text is poor if it is considerably shorter than the ground truth.

4.3 Ablation Study

To validate the effectiveness of each component in GRAPA, we report the result of the ablation study on the TripAdvisor dataset in Table  4 . We compare GRAPA (S1) with three variants, i.e., without topic embeddings on the user-item graph (S2), without the contrastive learning module (S3), and without both of them (S4). For the ROUGE scores, we only report the ROUGE-R scores here because the ROUGE-P scores do not consider the brevity penalty during calculation, as we discussed in Sect.  4.2 . We have the following observations:

4.3.1 Effectiveness of Topic Information

We compare S1 and S2 to evaluate the effectiveness of topic information on the edges. We observe that removing topic embeddings during the GNN propagation process leads to a worse review quality. For example, the BLEU-1 score decreases by 1.1%, and FMR decreases by 1.9%. This is because the topic information on the edges helps to model the diverse semantics of reviews. Semantically relevant reviews can enhance the modeling of user preferences and item characteristics, helping to generate better prompts.

4.3.2 Effectiveness of Contrastive Learning

We evaluate the effectiveness of contrastive learning for mitigating the interference introduced by irrelevant reviews. First, compared with S4, which only relies on the structure of the user-item graph, S3 integrates topic information on the edges and achieves an improvement in BLEU-4, ROUGE1-R, ROUGE2-R, and FMR. However, we observed a 1.3% decrease in BLEU-1, suggesting that semantically irrelevant reviews do introduce interference with the graph-induced prompts.

Second, when comparing S1 (which further integrates contrastive learning) with S3, we can observe that S1 is consistently better than S3. For example, S1 achieves 3.3% higher BLEU-1, 2.6% higher BLEU-4, 2.2% higher ROUGE1-R, 4.8% higher ROUGE2-R, and 0.4% higher FMR than S3. This indicates that the interference introduced by irrelevant reviews exists and that using contrastive learning can help address this problem.

4.4 Parameter Sensitivity

In this section, we report the parameter sensitivity of the contrastive learning module. Figure  3 presents the results on the TripAdvisor dataset.

4.4.1 Impact of Temperature

The temperature \(\tau\) in Eq. ( 17 ) affects the smoothness of the softmax function [ 76 ] used in InfoNCE loss. To study the impact of \(\tau\) on GRAPA, we vary the value of \(\tau\) and present the results in Fig.  3 a. We notice that as \(\tau\) increases, the ROUGE1-F score first increases until it reaches the peak when \(\tau =0.1\) , then it decreases. The observation is consistent with the analysis in [ 77 ]—A higher temperature produces a softer probability distribution over topics. When the temperature is high, the result probabilities may be hard to distinguish. When the temperature is low, the distribution is sharper, and the model may be overconfident, leading to performance degradation.

4.4.2 Impact of Coefficient

The coefficient \(\lambda\) in Eq. ( 5 ) controls the weight of the contrastive learning loss in the training loss. We choose different \(\lambda\) from \(\{0,1e-4,5e-4,1e-3,5e-3,1e-2\}\) and present the results in Fig.  3 b. We observe that GRAPA achieves the optimal performance when \(\lambda\) is 1e-4. This is consistent with our analysis in Sect.  3 that contrastive learning helps to address the interference introduced by irrelevant reviews. For example, when \(\lambda\) is zero, which means there is no contrastive learning, the irrelevant topics lead to poor performance. Moreover, when \(\lambda\) is higher, a heightened emphasis on contrastive learning may steer the optimization objective away from the model’s primary focus, i.e., generating reviews with respect to users’ intentions.

Parameter sensitivity on TripAdvisor dataset

4.5 Case Study

We conduct a case study to validate the quality of reviews generated by GRAPA. Table 5 presents two examples generated by different models on the Amazon dataset. We can observe that reviews generated by GRAPA exhibit superior consistency with the ground truth.

In the first case, GRAPA captures the most accurate keywords (i.e., {“transfer”, “extras”}) and zero keywords of irrelevant topics. Although PEPLER-D and PEPLER also capture two keywords accurately (i.e., {“edition”, “transfer”} and {“transfer”, “extras”}), they mistakenly capture keywords of irrelevant topics (i.e., {“audio commentary”} and {“worth the price”}), deviating from the user’s intention. Moreover, GRAPA captures the adjectives (i.e., {“good”, “interesting”}) accurately, while the compared baselines can only capture one adjective (i.e., {“special”} by PEPLER-D, and {“good”} by other baselines).

In the second case, only GRAPA captures the correct topic keyword (i.e., {“acting”}). Though GRAPA and PEPLER-D capture the adjective (i.e., {“good”}), PEPLER-D mistakenly captures keywords of irrelevant topics (i.e., {“transfer”, “audio”}. Other baselines capture neither the correct topic keyword nor the adjective.

The above observations explain why GRAPA achieves the best BLEU, ROUGE, and FMR metrics in Table 3 . First, incorporating the user-item interaction graph helps to capture users’ intentions (keywords of the corresponding topic) and writing styles (adjectives) more accurately. Second, the contrastive learning module helps to reduce the chance of generating keywords from irrelevant topics.

4.6 Visualization Analysis

Visualization of topic embeddings on Amazon dataset. Figure  4 a and 4 c present the distribution of the topic embeddings using tSNE before and after the incorporation of contrastive learning. Figure  4 b and 4 d provide dedicated magnifications of the regions encapsulated by the red bounding boxes within Figs.  4 a and 4 c

In this section, we conduct visualization analysis to investigate how contrastive learning helps to distinguish different topics and alleviate the interference of semantically irrelevant reviews.

We present the distribution of the topic representations using tSNE [ 78 ] in Fig.  4 .

Using contrastive learning can help to distinguish the different topics. For example, the topics in Fig.  4 c are more scattered than those in Fig.  4 a. If we look at the red bounding box in detail, we can find that many topics almost overlap when not using contrastive learning (e.g., [“effects”,“action”], [“horror”,“thriller”], [“comedy”,“humor”], [“kids”,“disney”] and [“watch”,“times”] in Fig.  4 b) while in Fig.  4 d, these topics are more scattered. This can be attributed as follows: Though reviews in the user-item interaction graph contain different semantic information, the GNN module tends to smooth representations of nodes/edges in the graph structure. In this case, the smoothing mechanism may mix the semantic information of neighboring nodes/edges, leading to indistinguishable node/edge representations. This may further cause the graph-induced prompts to be indistinguishable and degrade the quality of generated reviews. To address this problem, we propose to use contrastive learning to distinguish reviews from different topics. The topic representations are aligned with the word embedding table of the PLM, which is trainable, and as a result topic representations are more scattered during the optimizing process of the contrastive loss. Moreover, the graph-induced prompts are aggregated from the neighborhood information, which also includes the topic representation. In this way, graph-induced prompts could be more distinguishable, thus better guiding the review generation process.

5 Conclusion

In this paper, we proposed GRAPA, a graph-enhanced prompt learning framework for personalized review generation. Besides the users’/items’ ID embeddings, GRAPA further explored the historical user-item interactions and the diverse semantics of reviews. First, GRAPA extracted topic information for each review based on unsupervised clustering to model the diverse review semantics. Second, GRAPA constructed a user-item bipartite graph with users/items as nodes and reviews as edges, and employed a heterogeneous GNN to explore the high-order historical user-item interactions to generate user/item embeddings. The user/item embeddings generated by GNN and their ID embeddings are used as prompts and fed into PLMs to guide the generation of personalized reviews. Moreover, GRAPA used contrastive learning to alleviate the interference introduced by semantically irrelevant reviews. We conducted solid experiments, and experimental results on three public datasets show that GRAPA outperforms existing methods.

Data availability

The datasets utilized in this work are all public and can be accessed via the following link: https://github.com/lileipisces/PETER . Source: The baseline method PETER.

https://www.tripadvisor.com .

http://jmcauley.ucsd.edu/data/amazon .

https://www.yelp.com/dataset .

https://pytorch.org .

https://huggingface.co/gpt2 .

Dong L, Huang S, Wei F, Lapata M, Zhou M, Xu K (2017) Learning to generate product reviews from attributes. In: EACL, pp 623–632

Li L, Zhang Y, Chen L (2021) Personalized transformer for explainable recommendation. In: ACL/IJCNLP, pp 4947–4957

Truong Q-T, Lauw H (2019) Multimodal review generation for recommender systems. In: The world wide web conference, pp 1864–1874

Zheng X, Wang M, Chen C, Wang Y, Cheng Z (2019) Explore: explainable item-tag co-recommendation. Inf Sci 474:170–186

Article   Google Scholar  

Zou C, Chen Z (2019) Joint latent factors and attributes to discover interpretable preferences in recommendation. Inf Sci 505:498–512

Article   MathSciNet   Google Scholar  

Guo S, Wang Y, Yuan H, Huang Z, Chen J, Wang X (2021) Taert: triple-attentional explainable recommendation with temporal convolutional network. Inf Sci 567:185–200

Ni J, McAuley J (2018) Personalized review generation by expanding phrases and attending on aspect-aware representations. In: ACL, pp 706–711

Lewis M, Liu Y, Goyal N, Ghazvininejad M, Mohamed A, Levy O, Stoyanov V, Zettlemoyer L (2020) BART: denoising sequence-to-sequence pre-training for natural language generation, translation, and comprehension. In: Proceedings of the 58th annual meeting of the association for computational linguistics, pp 7871–7880. Association for Computational Linguistics, Online. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2020.acl-main.703 . https://aclanthology.org/2020.acl-main.703

Raffel C, Shazeer N, Roberts A, Lee K, Narang S, Matena M, Zhou Y, Li W, Liu PJ (2020) Exploring the limits of transfer learning with a unified text-to-text transformer. J Mach Learn Res 21(1):5485–5551

MathSciNet   Google Scholar  

Radford A, Wu J, Child R, Luan D, Amodei D, Sutskever I et al (2019) Language models are unsupervised multitask learners. OpenAI blog 1(8):9

Google Scholar  

Zhang X, Liu Z, Xiang Y, Zhou D (2022) Complicate then simplify: a novel way to explore pre-trained models for text classification. In: Proceedings of the 29th international conference on computational linguistics, pp 1136–1145

Nguyen MT, Tran KT, Van Nguyen N, Vu X-S (2023) ViGPTQA-state-of-the-art LLMs for vietnamese question answering: system overview, core models training, and evaluations. In: Proceedings of the 2023 conference on empirical methods in natural language processing: industry track, pp 754–764

Zhu Y, Wang Y, Qiang J, Wu X (2023) Prompt-learning for short text classification. IEEE Trans Knowl Data Eng 23:1–13

Chen X, Zhang Y, Deng J, Jiang J-Y, Wang W (2023) Gotta: generative few-shot question answering by prompt-based cloze data augmentation. In: Proceedings of the 2023 SIAM international conference on data mining (SDM), SIAM, pp 909–917

Sun C, Li Y, Li H, Hong S (2023) Test: Text prototype aligned embedding to activate LLM’s ability for time series. arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.08241

Pan J, Lin Z, Ge Y, Zhu X, Zhang R, Wang Y, Qiao Y, Li H (2023) Retrieving-to-answer: Zero-shot video question answering with frozen large language models. arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.11732

Li L, Zhang Y, Chen L (2023) Personalized prompt learning for explainable recommendation. ACM Trans Inf Syst 41(4):1–26

Jeh G, Widom J (2002) Simrank: a measure of structural-context similarity. In: Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGKDD international conference on knowledge discovery and data mining, pp 538–543

Deng L, Zhao Y (2023) Deep learning-based semantic feature extraction: a literature review and future directions. ZTE Commun 21(2):11–17

Zhang M, Chen Y (2018) Link prediction based on graph neural networks. Advances in neural Information Processing Systems 31

Shi Y, Paige B, Torr PH, Siddharth N (2020) Relating by contrasting: a data-efficient framework for multimodal generative models. arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.01179

Yuan X, Lin Z, Kuen J, Zhang J, Wang Y, Maire M, Kale A, Faieta B (2021) Multimodal contrastive training for visual representation learning. In: Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF conference on computer vision and pattern recognition, pp 6995–7004

See A, Liu PJ, Manning CD (2017) Get to the point: summarization with pointer-generator networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.04368

Dong D, Wu H, He W, Yu D, Wang H (2015) Multi-task learning for multiple language translation. In: ACL-IJCNLP, pp 1723–1732

Cai D, Wang Y, Bi W, Tu Z, Liu X, Shi S (2019) Retrieval-guided dialogue response generation via a matching-to-generation framework. In: EMNLP-IJCNLP, pp 1866–1875

Yu Y, Si X, Hu C, Zhang J (2019) A review of recurrent neural networks: LSTM cells and network architectures. Neural Comput 31(7):1235–1270

Dey R, Salem FM (2017) Gate-variants of gated recurrent unit (GRU) neural networks. In: MWSCAS, IEEE, pp 1597–1600

Ni J, Lipton ZC, Vikram S, McAuley JJ (2017) Estimating reactions and recommending products with generative models of reviews. In: IJCNLP, pp 783–791

Li P, Wang Z, Ren Z, Bing L, Lam W (2017) Neural rating regression with abstractive tips generation for recommendation. In: Proceedings of the 40th international ACM SIGIR conference on research and development in information retrieval, pp 345–354

Sun P, Wu L, Zhang K, Fu Y, Hong R, Wang M (2020) Dual learning for explainable recommendation: towards unifying user preference prediction and review generation. In: WWW, pp 837–847

Vaswani A, Shazeer N, Parmar N, Uszkoreit J, Jones L, Gomez AN, Kaiser L, Polosukhin I (2017) Attention is all you need. In: NIPS, pp 5998–6008

Ni J, Li J, McAuley JJ (2019) Justifying recommendations using distantly-labeled reviews and fine-grained aspects. In: EMNLP-IJCNLP, pp 188–197

Konstas I, Iyer S, Yatskar M, Choi Y, Zettlemoyer L (2017) Neural AMR: Sequence-to-sequence models for parsing and generation. In: Proceedings of the 55th annual meeting of the association for computational linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers), pp 146–157

Guo Z, Zhang Y, Teng Z, Lu W (2019) Densely connected graph convolutional networks for graph-to-sequence learning. Trans Assoc Comput Linguist 7:297–312

Beck D, Haffari G, Cohn T (2018) Graph-to-sequence learning using gated graph neural networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.09835

Koncel-Kedziorski R, Bekal D, Luan Y, Lapata M, Hajishirzi H (2019) Text generation from knowledge graphs with graph transformers. arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.02342

Han J, Shareghi E (2022) Self-supervised graph masking pre-training for graph-to-text generation. In: Proceedings of the 2022 conference on empirical methods in natural language processing, pp 4845–4853. Association for Computational Linguistics, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2022.emnlp-main.321 . https://aclanthology.org/2022.emnlp-main.321

Colas A, Alvandipour M, Wang DZ (2022) GAP: A graph-aware language model framework for knowledge graph-to-text generation. In: Proceedings of the 29th international conference on computational linguistics, pp 5755–5769. International Committee on Computational Linguistics, Gyeongju, Republic of Korea. https://aclanthology.org/2022.coling-1.506

Banarescu L, Bonial C, Cai S, Georgescu M, Griffitt K, Hermjakob U, Knight K, Koehn P, Palmer M, Schneider N (2013) Abstract meaning representation for sembanking. In: Proceedings of the 7th linguistic annotation workshop and interoperability with discourse, pp 178–186

Li Z, Wang C, Wang X, Chen Z, Li J (2024) HJE: joint convolutional representation learning for knowledge hypergraph completion. IEEE Trans Knowl Data Eng 13:1–14

Li Z, Liu X, Wang X, Liu P, Shen Y (2023) Transo: a knowledge-driven representation learning method with ontology information constraints. World Wide Web (WWW) 26(1):297–319

Sutskever I, Vinyals O, Le QV (2014) Sequence to sequence learning with neural networks. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 27

Guo J, Du L, Liu H (2023) Gpt4graph: can large language models understand graph structured data? an empirical evaluation and benchmarking. arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.15066

Ke P, Ji H, Ran Y, Cui X, Wang L, Song L, Zhu X, Huang M (2021) Jointgt: graph-text joint representation learning for text generation from knowledge graphs. arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.10502

Tian Y, Song H, Wang Z, Wang H, Hu Z, Wang F, Chawla NV, Xu P (2023) Graph neural prompting with large language models. arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.15427

He K, Fan H, Wu Y, Xie S, Girshick R (2020) Momentum contrast for unsupervised visual representation learning. In: Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF conference on computer vision and pattern recognition, pp 9729–9738

Chen T, Kornblith S, Norouzi M, Hinton G (2020) A simple framework for contrastive learning of visual representations. In: International conference on machine learning, PMLR, pp. 1597–1607

Giorgi J, Nitski O, Wang B, Bader G (2021) DeCLUTR: deep contrastive learning for unsupervised textual representations. In: Proceedings of the 59th annual meeting of the association for computational linguistics and the 11th international joint conference on natural language processing (Volume 1: Long Papers), pp 879–895. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2021.acl-long.72 . https://aclanthology.org/2021.acl-long.72

Belghazi MI, Baratin A, Rajeshwar S, Ozair S, Bengio Y, Courville A, Hjelm D (2018) Mutual information neural estimation. In: International conference on machine learning, PMLR, pp 531–540

Zhu Y, Xu Y, Yu F, Liu Q, Wu S, Wang L (2020) Deep graph contrastive representation learning. In: ICML workshop on graph representation learning and beyond. http://arxiv.org/abs/2006.04131

You Y, Chen T, Sui Y, Chen T, Wang Z, Shen Y (2020) Graph contrastive learning with augmentations. Adv Neural Inf Process Syst 33:5812–5823

Lin Z, Tian C, Hou Y, Zhao WX (2022) Improving graph collaborative filtering with neighborhood-enriched contrastive learning. In: Proceedings of the ACM web conference 2022, pp 2320–2329

Lin S, Liu C, Zhou P, Hu Z-Y, Wang S, Zhao R, Zheng Y, Lin L, Xing E, Liang X (2022) Prototypical graph contrastive learning. IEEE Trans Neural Netw Learn Syst 35:2747–2758

Chen X, Xie X, Zhang N, Yan J, Deng S, Tan C, Huang F, Si L, Chen H (2021) Adaprompt: Adaptive prompt-based finetuning for relation extraction. arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.07650

Gao T, Fisch A, Chen D (2021) Making pre-trained language models better few-shot learners. In: Proceedings of the 59th annual meeting of the association for computational linguistics and the 11th international joint conference on natural language processing (Volume 1: Long Papers), pp 3816–3830. Association for Computational Linguistics, Online

Jiang Z, Xu FF, Araki J, Neubig G (2020) How can we know what language models know? Trans Assoc Comput Linguist 8:423–438

Dou Z-Y, Liu P, Hayashi H, Jiang Z, Neubig G (2021) GSum: a general framework for guided neural abstractive summarization. In: Proceedings of the 2021 conference of the North American chapter of the association for computational linguistics: human language technologies, Association for Computational Linguistics, Online, pp 4830–4842

Liu P, Yuan W, Fu J, Jiang Z, Hayashi H, Neubig G (2023) Pre-train, prompt, and predict: a systematic survey of prompting methods in natural language processing. ACM Comput Surv 55(9):1–35

Petroni F, Rocktäschel T, Riedel S, Lewis P, Bakhtin A, Wu Y, Miller A (2019) Language models as knowledge bases? In: Proceedings of the 2019 conference on empirical methods in natural language processing and the 9th international joint conference on natural language processing (EMNLP-IJCNLP), Association for Computational Linguistics, Hong Kong, China, pp 2463–2473

Brown T, Mann B, Ryder N, Subbiah M, Kaplan JD, Dhariwal P, Neelakantan A, Shyam P, Sastry G, Askell A, Agarwal S, Herbert-Voss A, Krueger G, Henighan T, Child R, Ramesh A, Ziegler D, Wu J, Winter C, Hesse C, Chen M, Sigler E, Litwin M, Gray S, Chess B, Clark J, Berner C, McCandlish S, Radford A, Sutskever I, Amodei D (2020) Language models are few-shot learners. In: Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, Curran Associates, Inc., vol. 33, pp 1877–1901

Li XL, Liang P (2021) Prefix-tuning: optimizing continuous prompts for generation. In: Proceedings of the 59th annual meeting of the association for computational linguistics and the 11th international joint conference on natural language processing (Volume 1: Long Papers), Association for Computational Linguistics, Online, pp 4582–4597

Hambardzumyan K, Khachatrian H, May J (2021) WARP: word-level adversarial reprogramming. In: Proceedings of the 59th annual meeting of the association for computational linguistics and the 11th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (Volume 1: Long Papers), Association for Computational Linguistics, Online, pp 4921–4933

Schick T, Schütze H (2021) Exploiting cloze-questions for few-shot text classification and natural language inference. In: Proceedings of the 16th conference of the European Chapter of the association for computational linguistics: main volume, Association for Computational Linguistics, Online, pp. 255–269

Liu X, Zheng Y, Du Z, Ding M, Qian Y, Yang Z, Tang J (2023) Gpt understands, too. AI Open

Ben-David E, Oved N, Reichart R (2022) Pada: example-based prompt learning for on-the-fly adaptation to unseen domains. Trans Assoc Comput Linguist 10:414–433

Grootendorst M (2022) Bertopic: neural topic modeling with a class-based TF-Ū procedure. arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.05794

Arthur D, Vassilvitskii S (2007) K-means++ the advantages of careful seeding. In: Proceedings of the 18th annual ACM-SIAM symposium on discrete algorithms, pp 1027–1035

He K, Zhang X, Ren S, Sun J (2016) Identity mappings in deep residual networks. In: Computer Vision–ECCV 2016: 14th European Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 11–14, 2016, Proceedings, Part IV, Springer, 14, pp 630–645

Oord Avd, Li Y, Vinyals O (2018) Representation learning with contrastive predictive coding. arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.03748

Li L, Zhang Y, Chen L (2020) Generate neural template explanations for recommendation. In: Proceedings of the 29th ACM international conference on information & knowledge management, pp 755–764

Zhang Y, Zhang H, Zhang M, Liu Y, Ma S (2014) Do users rate or review? boost phrase-level sentiment labeling with review-level sentiment classification. In: Proceedings of the 37th international ACM SIGIR conference on research & development in information retrieval, pp 1027–1030

Devlin J, Chang M-W, Lee K, Toutanova K (2018) Bert: Pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding. arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.04805

Papineni K, Roukos S, Ward T, Zhu W-J (2002) Bleu: a method for automatic evaluation of machine translation. In: Proceedings of the 40th annual meeting of the association for computational linguistics, pp 311–318

Lin C-Y (2004) Rouge: a package for automatic evaluation of summaries. In: Text Summarization branches out, pp 74–81

Sennrich R, Haddow B, Birch A (2015) Neural machine translation of rare words with subword units. arXiv preprint arXiv:1508.07909

Wu Z, Xiong Y, Yu SX, Lin D (2018) Unsupervised feature learning via non-parametric instance discrimination. In: Proceedings of the IEEE conference on computer vision and pattern recognition, pp 3733–3742

Hinton G, Vinyals O, Dean J (2015) Distilling the knowledge in a neural network. arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.02531

Maaten L, Hinton G (2008) Visualizing data using t-sne. J Mach Learn Res 9(86):2579–2605

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by NSFC under Grant No. 62272008.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Peking University, Beijing, China

Xiaoru Qu & Jun Gao

University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China

Hangzhou Yugu Technology Co., Ltd., Hangzhou, China

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

Conceptualization and Methodology: Xiaoru Qu Formal analysis: Xiaoru Qu Writing—Original Draft Preparation: Xiaoru Qu and Yifan Wang Writing—Review & Editing: All authors Funding acquisition: Jun Gao Supervision: Jun Gao.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yifan Wang or Jun Gao .

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest.

The authors declare that one of the corresponding authors, Jun Gao, is a member of the editorial board of Data Science and Engineering and was not involved in the review and decision-making stages, to avoid any potential conflict of interest.

Consent for Publication

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Qu, X., Wang, Y., Li, Z. et al. Graph-Enhanced Prompt Learning for Personalized Review Generation. Data Sci. Eng. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41019-024-00252-z

Download citation

Received : 24 February 2024

Revised : 24 April 2024

Accepted : 22 May 2024

Published : 18 June 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s41019-024-00252-z

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Personalized review generation
• Pre-trained language model
• Prompt learning
• Graph neural network
• Contrastive learning
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

This paper is in the following e-collection/theme issue:

Published on 18.6.2024 in Vol 26 (2024)

Identification of Ethical Issues and Practice Recommendations Regarding the Use of Robotic Coaching Solutions for Older Adults: Narrative Review

Authors of this article:

• Cécilia Palmier 1, 2 * , MSc   ; 
• Anne-Sophie Rigaud 1, 2 * , Prof Dr Med   ; 
• Toshimi Ogawa 3 , PhD   ; 
• Rainer Wieching 4 , Prof Dr   ; 
• Sébastien Dacunha 1, 2 * , MSc   ; 
• Federico Barbarossa 5 , MEng   ; 
• Vera Stara 5 , PhD   ; 
• Roberta Bevilacqua 5 , MSc   ; 
• Maribel Pino 1, 2 * , PhD  

1 Maladie d’Alzheimer, Université de Paris, Paris, France

2 Service de Gériatrie 1 & 2, Hôpital Broca, Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris, Paris, France

3 Smart-Aging Research Center, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

4 Institute for New Media & Information Systems, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany

5 Scientific Direction, Istituto Nazionale di Ricovero e Cura per Anziani, Ancona, Italy

*these authors contributed equally

Corresponding Author:

Anne-Sophie Rigaud, Prof Dr Med

Service de Gériatrie 1 & 2

Hôpital Broca

Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris

54 rue Pascal

Paris, 75013

Phone: 33 144083503

Fax:33 144083510

Email: [email protected]

Background: Technological advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, cognitive algorithms, and internet-based coaches have contributed to the development of devices capable of responding to some of the challenges resulting from demographic aging. Numerous studies have explored the use of robotic coaching solutions (RCSs) for supporting healthy behaviors in older adults and have shown their benefits regarding the quality of life and functional independence of older adults at home. However, the use of RCSs by individuals who are potentially vulnerable raises many ethical questions. Establishing an ethical framework to guide the development, use, and evaluation practices regarding RCSs for older adults seems highly pertinent.

Objective: The objective of this paper was to highlight the ethical issues related to the use of RCSs for health care purposes among older adults and draft recommendations for researchers and health care professionals interested in using RCSs for older adults.

Methods: We conducted a narrative review of the literature to identify publications including an analysis of the ethical dimension and recommendations regarding the use of RCSs for older adults. We used a qualitative analysis methodology inspired by a Health Technology Assessment model. We included all article types such as theoretical papers, research studies, and reviews dealing with ethical issues or recommendations for the implementation of these RCSs in a general population, particularly among older adults, in the health care sector and published after 2011 in either English or French. The review was performed between August and December 2021 using the PubMed, CINAHL, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Explore, SpringerLink, and PsycINFO databases. Selected publications were analyzed using the European Network of Health Technology Assessment Core Model (version 3.0) around 5 ethical topics: benefit-harm balance, autonomy, privacy, justice and equity, and legislation.

Results: In the 25 publications analyzed, the most cited ethical concerns were the risk of accidents, lack of reliability, loss of control, risk of deception, risk of social isolation, data confidentiality, and liability in case of safety problems. Recommendations included collecting the opinion of target users, collecting their consent, and training professionals in the use of RCSs. Proper data management, anonymization, and encryption appeared to be essential to protect RCS users’ personal data.

Conclusions: Our analysis supports the interest in using RCSs for older adults because of their potential contribution to individuals’ quality of life and well-being. This analysis highlights many ethical issues linked to the use of RCSs for health-related goals. Future studies should consider the organizational consequences of the implementation of RCSs and the influence of cultural and socioeconomic specificities of the context of experimentation. We suggest implementing a scalable ethical and regulatory framework to accompany the development and implementation of RCSs for various aspects related to the technology, individual, or legal aspects.

Introduction

Challenges associated to population aging.

Technological and medical advances have led to a demographic shift in the population, with the number of older adults constantly increasing. According to the United Nations [ 1 ], older adults (aged 60-65 years) will represent 16% of the world’s population in 2050. In addition, life expectancy is increasing, from 64.2 years in 1990 to 72.6 years in 2019, and is expected to reach 77.1 years in 2050 [ 1 ]. However, there is a wide diversity of health conditions among older adults. The health status of older adults is dependent on multiple factors, including nonmodifiable genetic factors and environmental factors, such as lifestyle [ 2 ]. Thus, older adults represent a very heterogeneous population with multiple and diverse needs and desires. With advancing age, the loss of functional independence; frailty; and other health diseases such as cardiovascular problems, cancers, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, or major neurocognitive disorders may appear [ 3 - 5 ]. Among age-related conditions, major neurocognitive disorders (eg, Alzheimer disease) receive particular attention due to the increasing prevalence of these diseases [ 6 ].

The aging population is not only a public health issue but also a socioeconomic one. To face this challenge, it is important to develop preventive measures to support active and healthy aging and to preserve the independent functioning and quality of life of older adults. The adoption of healthy behaviors can help prevent or delay the onset of pathologies or treat them if detected early [ 7 ].

The Use of Technologies for Older Adults

Preventive health measures can be supported through new technologies, such as robotic coaching solutions (RCSs) that promote healthy aging among older adults [ 8 , 9 ]. RCSs have been defined as personalized systems that continuously monitor the activities and environment of the user and provide them with timely health-related advice and interventions [ 10 - 12 ]. These systems can help users define and achieve different health-oriented goals [ 12 ].

RCSs may encompass artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that can analyze user data, personalize coaching programs, and adapt recommendations based on each individual’s needs [ 1 , 13 - 19 ]. RCSs can involve robots equipped with sensors such as cameras, microphones, or motion sensors to collect real-time data about the user, AI, and programming that enables their interaction with users [ 20 , 21 ]. These technologies are often equipped with voice and visual recognition and learning capabilities [ 20 , 21 ]. They can benefit from advanced natural language processing techniques, which allow for understanding of the user’s input, facilitating natural and effective communication [ 22 ]. RCSs can offer guidance, support, and feedback based on preprogrammed information or real-time data analysis. These data can inform coaching strategies and allow RCSs to provide users with relevant feedback [ 8 ].

RCSs can also encompass a virtual agent, which refers to a computer program or an AI system that interacts with users in a manner that simulates human conversation [ 14 , 18 , 23 ]. A virtual agent is an animated character capable of adopting a social behavior mimicking that of humans to encourage the users to make changes in their habits [ 14 ]. Virtual agents might take the form of a chatbot, voice assistant, or other AI-driven communication system [ 14 ]. Biometric monitoring devices to track physiological data such as heart rate, sleep patterns, or stress levels can also be included in RCSs [ 8 , 20 , 21 ]. These data can contribute to the configuration of personalized coaching plans. RCSs can also encompass advanced data analytics that can process large data sets generated by users’ interactions and behaviors. This functionality helps in identifying patterns, trends, and areas for improvement in coaching strategies [ 24 ]. Integrating Internet-of-Things devices in RCSs can provide additional data points about a user’s environment, lifestyle, or habits, thus contributing to a personalized coaching approach [ 25 ].

Health-oriented RCSs could enable users to lead a healthy lifestyle, by identifying needs and goals and providing appropriate risk predictions and individualized recommendations [ 12 , 26 - 28 ]. There are RCSs dedicated to a particular domain, such as physical activity or motor rehabilitation [ 9 , 16 ]. Others may have the objective of promoting independent and healthy aging [ 29 ].

Promoting active and healthy aging can allow older adults to maintain their independence and continue to live at home [ 4 , 30 ], which is a wish of many [ 3 ]. This intervention could also help to reduce the need for assistance, usually provided by informal caregivers and health professionals [ 4 , 19 , 30 - 33 ]. Furthermore, RCSs could lead to a reduction in individual and collective health care expenses [ 4 , 32 , 34 ] by easing access to health and social care interventions to a wide population, including hard-to-reach (eg, geographically isolated) individuals. However, although the use of health-related RCSs could have many benefits, several ethical issues arise with their development and implementation in human environments [ 3 , 35 - 38 ].

An Ethical Framework for the Use of Technologies for Older Adults

For RCSs to contribute to active and healthy aging, it is important that all the stakeholders (engineers, geriatricians, psychologists, etc) involved in their design and implementation refer to an ethical framework [ 3 , 38 ]. It is also important to inform society (politicians and legal experts) about such an extension of technology in people’s lives (private, professional, medicosocial, and commercial context), so that we can create a legal framework for the use of these technologies. An analysis of the way in which ethical and legal dimensions have been addressed by studies, in the field of RCSs for health care, seems useful to support the key actors in their development and implementation. The growing interest in the ethical questions associated with the use of social and assistive robots is evidenced by the volume of literature reviews [ 3 , 12 , 18 , 31 , 32 , 37 , 39 - 51 ] on the topic.

Now, it appears appropriate to systematically examine this body of work, focusing on the ethical analysis, and provide an overview of the literature. Therefore, we performed a review of the literature on RCSs for older adults using the European Network of Health Technology Assessment (EUnetHTA Core Model; version 3.0) model [ 52 ] for analysis. This Health Technology Assessment (HTA) model makes it possible to assess the intended and unintended consequences of the use of a specific technology regarding multiple domains (eg, technological, ethical, clinical, and organizational), providing methods and concepts for this analysis [ 53 ]. Therefore, HTA is a process that informs decision-making about the introduction of new technologies such as RCSs in health care. It also seems necessary to issue guidelines for the development and implementation of health-oriented RCSs [ 54 ].

The objective of this study was to highlight the main ethical questions and corresponding recommendations linked to the use of RCSs for older adults for engineers, researchers, and health professionals in this field. For this purpose, we conducted a narrative literature review using the ethical dimension of the EUnetHTA Core Model to guide the analysis. To the best of our knowledge, such a study has not been conducted so far.

A thematic analysis of the literature was performed to identify publications that describe RCSs for supporting older adults in health care and prevention and those that address ethical issues and recommendations regarding their development and implementation. The methodology used for the narrative review was inspired by the study by Green et al [ 55 ].

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

The review encompassed papers focusing on all populations, with particular attention to older adults. It focused on the concept of RCSs for health, while also incorporating publications discussing other health technologies for older adults if the authors have delved into relevant ethical considerations for their development or implementation.

The context of the review revolved around the use of RCSs (or related technologies), especially for older adults, across diverse living environments such as homes, hospitals, and nursing homes. Publications addressing RCSs and related ethical issues within the health care domain were considered, whereas those focusing solely on technical aspects (eg, AI and deep learning) or those outside the health care domain were excluded.

Various types of publications, including theoretical papers, research studies, and reviews, were included if they offered ethical reflections or recommendations for RCS use in health care. These reflections and recommendations were expected to align with the topics and issues of the ethical dimension of the EUnetHTA Core Model.

All publications, regardless of language (English or French), were eligible if published after 2011. This time frame was chosen considering the technological advancements over the past decade, which may have influenced the evolution of ethical issues and recommendations in the field of remote care systems and related technologies. Textbox 1 summarizes the inclusion and exclusion criteria adopted for the selection of papers in this review.

Inclusion criteria

• Types of participants: all populations
• Interventions or phenomena of interest: RCSs or other technologies used in health care, if ethical issues are discussed
• Context: the use of RCSs in the health care sector
• Paper type: all paper types (theoretical papers, research studies, and reviews) that discuss ethical issues
• Language: English or French
• Date of publication: after 2011

Exclusion criteria

• Types of participants: not applicable
• Interventions or phenomena of interest: RCSs or all other types of technology outside the health care sector
• Context: the use of RCSs in non–health care sectors
• Paper type: papers about RCSs and other technologies that are not dealing with ethical issues
• Language: all other languages
• Date of publication: before 2011

Search Strategy and Study Selection

The review was conducted using the following keywords: “seniors,” “older adults,” “social robots,” “assistive robots,” “assistive technology,” “robots,” “virtual coach,” “e-coaching,” “coaching system,” “coaching device,” “ethics,” and “recommendations.”

The review was performed between August 2021 and December 2021 using the PubMed, CINAHL, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Explore, SpringerLink, and PsycINFO databases.

This search allowed us to find 4928 initial publications. Then, secondary research using references from other articles and the same inclusion criteria was conducted. This search allowed us to find 13 additional papers.

In total, 4943 papers were analyzed. The selection of the final publications was performed after reading the title and abstract first and, then, the full article. This selection process helped us to exclude irrelevant papers and duplicates ( Figure 1 ). In total, 0.51% (25/4943) of the papers were included in our review.

Data Analysis Criteria

The selected papers were analyzed using the ethical domain of the EUnetHTA Core Model [ 52 ]. Proper registration of the use of EUnetHTA Core Model for the purpose of this review was made on the HTA Core Model website [ 52 ].

The model was developed for the production and sharing of HTA information, allowing for the support of evidence-based decision-making in health care, but it can also be customized to other research needs. The EUnetHTA Core Model is composed of 9 domains, each including several topics. Each topic also includes different issues (ie, questions that should be considered for the evaluation of health technologies). Thus, the model is structured into 3 levels: domain (level 1), topic (level 2), and issue (level 3). The combination of a domain, topic, and issue is linked to an assessment element ID, which can be identified using a specific code for standardization purposes (B0001, B0002, etc).

The main EUnetHTA model domains include the following: (1) health and current use of the technology, (2) description and technical characteristics of the technology, (3) safety, (4) clinical effectiveness, (5) costs and economic evaluation, (6) ethical aspects, (7) organizational aspects, (8) patient and social aspects, and (9) legal aspects.

The ethical domain (level 1) in the EUnetHTA Core Model [ 52 ] includes 5 topics (level 2): “benefit-harm balance,” “autonomy,” “respect for people,” “justice and equity,” and “legislation.” Each of these topics includes several issues (level 3) [ 52 ].

In this study, 2 authors (CP and ASR) independently analyzed the 25 selected articles. First, they read the articles several times to improve familiarity with the ideas addressing the ethical aspects of RCSs. Then, in each publication (methods, results, and discussion sections), they identified segments of data that were relevant or captured an idea linked to the “ethical” domain of the model. A subsequent exploration of the coded data (sentences or set of statements) was performed to get a more precise classification at the topic level (level 2) and at the issue level (level 3). Then, the coding was performed using the HTA nomenclature. The 2 experts (CP and ASR) compared their results. In a few cases, the coding results showed a lack of consensus between the 2 coding authors, which was resolved through a subsequent discussion between them. Interrater correlation was not calculated.

A thematic analysis using the EUnetHTA framework for conducting a literature review has been described in other studies [ 56 , 57 ]. Furthermore, the use of EUnetHTA to perform an ethical analysis of health technologies has already been proposed [ 58 ]. The 25 selected articles were all coded using this methodology. Some authors have previously emphasized the possibility of overlapping issues between topics in the HTA analysis. They have suggested to assess the overlapping issues in the most relevant topic section [ 59 ].

This review was not registered, and a protocol for the review was not prepared.

Selected articles are presented in Multimedia Appendix 1 [ 3 , 12 , 18 , 31 , 32 , 37 - 51 , 60 - 64 ]. For each topic, we have presented our findings in terms of questions and recommendations according to the EUnetHTA Core Model, wherever possible.

Ethical Issues and Recommendations for the Use of New Technologies

This section aims to summarize the ethical analysis performed regarding the use of RCSs with older adults and to provide recommendations for ethical use of these devices. Table 1 presents a synthetic summary of the elements presented in this section.

Topic 1: Benefit-Harm Balance

RCSs should be developed according to the principles of beneficence (ie, to promote the interest of users) and nonmaleficence (ie, to avoid inflicting harm) [ 39 , 60 , 64 ].

What Are the Known and Estimated Benefits and Harms for Patients When Implementing or Not Implementing the Technology?

Risk of social isolation.

According to Sharkey and Sharkey [ 50 ], technological devices, when used appropriately, could benefit older adults by promoting social interaction and connection with their loved ones [ 4 , 31 , 40 ]. Broadbent et al [ 19 ] have discussed the potential of robots to reduce older adults’ social isolation. However, other authors reported the negative influence of the use of robotic devices on human contact [ 31 , 32 , 65 ]. The use of robots (eg, telepresence robots) to make some cost savings (eg, reducing travel costs and time spent on trips for family and professionals to visit older adults) would reduce face-to-face interactions [ 3 , 36 , 39 , 40 ]. Moreover, according to Körtner [ 47 ], the more people become accustomed to communicating with robots, the less they will be used to communicating with humans. The use of social robots could lead to a reduction of interactions with humans and thus to social isolation and emotional dependence [ 39 ]. However, the influence of technological devices, such as RCSs, on social isolation is still under debate, and the impact of technology would depend on the manner in which it is used.

To avoid exacerbating the users’ social isolation, Portacolone et al [ 38 ] advocate that social robots and similar technologies should be designed with the objective of fostering interactions with other humans, for instance, keeping users informed about the entertainment and socializing activities near their home, connecting them with their loved ones, and so on.

Risk of Deception

Another major risk for users is deception [ 39 , 64 , 66 ]. Portacolone et al [ 38 ] described 3 types of deception that people with neurocognitive disorders may face when interacting with social robotic systems but which may also apply to all users. The first type involves the user’s misconception of what is driving the technological device [ 51 ]. Users may be misled if they think that behind a medical chatbot, there is a real physician who communicates and reads their messages [ 44 ] or, alternatively, if they are not aware that, at some point, there are real humans guiding the technological device [ 38 ]. The second type refers to robotic devices programmed to express feelings or other types of affective communication, which may lead the user to believe that the system’s emotions are authentic. Related to this issue, Körtner [ 47 ] discussed how some older adults may fear that their social robot will forget them during their absence from home. The resemblance with the living in terms of affective behavior (eg, crying, laughing, or expressing concern) can make the user believe that there is a reciprocity between human and robot feelings [ 43 ]. The last type of deception is related to the inadequate interpretations that older adults may have regarding the nature of the robot, for example, thinking that an animal-shaped robot is a real animal or a pet [ 38 ]. Some current developments of social robots tend to make them resemble a living being, in terms of their verbal and nonverbal behaviors [ 34 , 60 ] or by highly anthropomorphizing their design [ 47 ], which may blur the boundary between the real and the artificial [ 45 , 60 ]. These design choices can also impact users’ dignity by infantilizing them as they are led to believe in something that is false [ 50 ].

However, according to some researchers [ 51 , 63 , 64 ], the notion of deception should be considered in terms of the gradation between what is morally acceptable and what is not. Deception would be morally acceptable when it aims to improve a person’s health or quality of life, for example, the use companion robots to calm a person experiencing behavioral disorders linked to dementia [ 51 ].

According to Danaher [ 43 ] and Vandemeulebroucke et al [ 40 ], to avoid deception, it is essential to be transparent to users about the design and operation of devices. As the information given to the participants is the basis for obtaining consent to use the technology, it is essential to offer them documents explaining how the device is built and its advantages and limitations in a clear manner adapted to the user’s knowledge and experience. It is also important to inform users on how to behave with technology [ 12 ]. Researchers should also answer users’ questions, pay attention to their feedback, and use it to improve the device and its documentation [ 60 ]. During experiments with RCSs, it is also important that researchers regularly remind participants of the nature of the technological device to reduce the risk of misinterpretation and to ensure that they still consent to participate in the study [ 38 ].

Biases of Algorithms

An autonomous device does not work without AI or algorithms that allow it to make decisions. However, these technologies are created by humans, and programming biases can be incorporated into them and lead to failures [ 44 ]. A technological device can, for instance, misread a situation and react accordingly, leading to a safety risk for the user [ 18 ]. Thus, it is essential that the researcher scrutinizes the algorithms used in RCSs before their implementation [ 44 ]. Fiske et al [ 44 ] also suggest providing the users with detailed explanations about the algorithms present in the technological device they are using.

What Are the Benefits and Harms of the Technology for Relatives, Other Patients, Organizations, Commercial Entities, Society, Etc?

At the society level, Boada et al [ 39 ] mentioned an ethical consideration related to the ecological impact of robotic devices in the current context of climate crisis and the lack of natural resources. The construction of RCSs requires raw materials, high energy consumption, and the management of their waste. Therefore, it is important for developers to design technologies that consume less energy and can be recycled.

Are There Any Unintended Consequences of the Technology and Its Application for Patients?

Technologies evolving very quickly.

For some older adults, technologies evolve very quickly, which makes it difficult for them to keep up with [ 62 ]. Denning et al [ 67 ] encourage designers to develop products that are intuitive to use or to offer users a simplified training. However, although some technologies are progressing quickly, technological limitations are still present, especially regarding social robotic systems, impacting their performance [ 68 ] and generating frustration among some users [ 69 ].

Unsuitability of Technology

The lack of experience with the technologies and the fact that the systems are not suitable to everyone can reduce the usability and acceptability of RCSs among older adults [ 3 , 60 , 62 ]. Frennert and Östlund [ 62 ] highlighted that some older adults were not confident in their ability to handle a robot because of previous complicated experience with technology. Peek et al [ 70 ] also reported that users had doubts about their ability to use the technology and feared that they would easily forget how to use it. They may also fear false alarms generated by monitoring technologies. For example, a person may decide to sit on the floor, but this behavior can be considered as a fall by the technology, and it could call for an ambulance to be sent to the person’s home in vain [ 70 ].

To promote acceptability and usability of RCSs, it is essential to develop them considering the capabilities, needs, and wishes of various users [ 31 , 47 ]. “User-centered design” approaches should be used for this purpose [ 71 ]. This methodology must be performed in a continuous manner to consider the development, new preferences, and experiences of the users. Technology assessment should also be conducted before deployment in ecological environments to improve the predictability of RCSs and decrease the risk of confusion and accidents [ 40 , 47 ].

Topic 2: Autonomy

According to Anderson and Kamphorst [ 42 ], the notion of autonomy implies the recognition of people, for instance, users of RCSs, as thinking individuals who have their own perspective on matters and are able to judge what is best for them.

Is the Technology Used for Individuals Who Are Especially Vulnerable?

Free and informed consent is a prerequisite for the involvement of an individual in research, regardless of the domain. This aspect is mentioned in numerous codes and declarations such as the Declaration of Helsinki (1964-2008) [ 72 ]. In the context of studies of the use of RCSs, this principle ensures that the person has freely chosen to use a device. However, some older adults, particularly those with cognitive disorders, may have difficulties in understanding and evaluating information related to RCSs and therefore in making appropriate choices [ 3 ]. Moreover, the person may not remember that the RCS is in their environment or how it works [ 38 , 44 ]. The question of how to ensure that the older adult has understood the purpose of RCS and that their choice of using the technology is based solely on their own decision and not that of a relative, caregiver, or institution has also been discussed [ 46 ].

Researchers in the field of RCS should adapt to the cognitive abilities of the populations they work with to facilitate communication and decision-making [ 46 ]. Thus, the observation of the person’s behavior is necessary to identify potential reservations regarding the use of RCSs. When the person is very vulnerable to respond, informed consent could be sought by proxy such as from children, spouse, or partner [ 46 , 64 ]. However, according to Diaz-Orueta et al [ 37 ], the final decision of using RCSs lies with the user. To prevent loss of capacity and to guard against any risk of inducement to participate, advance directives [ 46 , 64 ] or implementation of an advance power of attorney [ 46 ] can be proposed.

Does the Implementation or Use of the Technology Affect the Patient’s Capability and Possibility to Exercise Autonomy?

Dependence on the technology.

Although the main interest of RCSs for older adults is the maintenance of functional independence, it has been claimed that these devices could make people dependent on them. By replacing users in tasks that they can still perform, the use of RCSs could create new forms of vulnerability [ 3 , 31 , 39 , 41 , 51 ].

People could rely entirely on autonomous technological devices, such as RCSs, to guide their behaviors, goals, and actions [ 12 , 73 ]. A questioning of the authenticity of users’ actions has been mentioned by Anderson and Kamphorst [ 42 ]. Users might not feel responsible for the success of their actions if they feel they are completely driven by the guidance of the RCS. People could also develop emotional and psychological feelings toward the technology. This may have negative consequences for the individuals [ 38 , 49 ] and lead to new vulnerabilities [ 39 ].

Loss of Freedom

Another ethical issue relates to the conflict between the user’s safety, encouraged by the technology guidance, and a loss of freedom. The RCS could impose constraints on the user under the pretext that the user’s actions are not good for them [ 39 , 40 , 74 ]. Sharkey and Sharkey [ 50 ] explained that to promote home care, RCS could act as a supervisor (ie, programmed to ensure that no danger is present and, if there is a danger, to implement procedures to stop it and avoid it in the future). For instance, the RCS could prevent the person from eating fatty and high-caloric food because it is harmful to them. To protect users and ensure that they live in good health, individuals using RCSs could end up being deprived of certain actions or being under some type of “house arrest” [ 50 ].

One of the goals of using such RCSs is to support older adults’ independence; therefore, it is essential that developers and researchers in the field take measures to preserve the person’s autonomy [ 75 ]. Furthermore, RCS users must have the opportunity to evaluate and re-evaluate the role given to the device, to assess whether the system is reliable and whether it is serving their interests [ 12 , 42 ].

Creating a New Source of Authority

The use of RCSs could alter human relationships, for example, by creating tensions between older adults and their informal caregivers. Their use could also create some tensions with health care professionals by creating a new source of authority [ 12 ]. Monitoring older adults through RCSs can generate anger in the user, for example, when the device insists that the older adult should take a medication that they do not want to take [ 41 , 75 ].

Topic 3: Respect for Persons

Does the implementation or use of the technology affect human dignity.

Human dignity may be affected by the use of RCSs as these technologies may be perceived as “problem evocators” [ 41 ]. Some RCSs are used to compensate for impaired capacities. However, according to Körtner [ 47 ], their use can make older adults aware of their limitations and lead to negative feelings, anxiety, or exhaustion. RCS use can also lead to a form of stigmatization by making one’s own inabilities visible to others [ 3 , 70 ]. It is important to have positive communication regarding RCSs, to provide a less stigmatizing view of their use.

Does the Technology Invade the Sphere of Privacy of the Patient or User?

To continue living at home, users are increasingly willing to tolerate intrusion in their privacy [ 70 ], but they are not always aware of when and how they are being monitored by RCSs [ 61 ]. Portacolone et al [ 38 ] provided the example of an animal-shaped companion robot, for which the older adults can signal that they no longer wish to interact with it by putting the robot to sleep. However, the animal-shaped robot can record data even when it is sleeping, but users are not always aware of this information. Forgetfulness and the lack of understanding of the device can lead to the risk of manipulation and coercion [ 44 ]. The person who is vulnerable may forget that they are being monitored and reveal personal information [ 50 ].

Technological devices, such as RCSs, must remain under the control of the users [ 47 ]. Users should have the ability to define when and where the device is used—when it collects data—to maintain their privacy, especially in intimate or private care settings.

Security of Data

According to Portacolone et al [ 38 ], remote monitoring technologies are usually controlled by third parties, sometimes even operating in another country, which can lead to cultural biases during the interaction between the older adult and the RCS. This context involves the risk that the person controlling the device (third party) takes advantage of the older adult’s vulnerability to steal their personal information or exposes the user to financial abuse [ 38 ]. Older adults are not always aware or vigilant about the sharing and use of data, which may be personal and sensitive [ 73 ]. Furthermore, RCSs can be connected to internet services that collect, store, and transfer these sensitive data [ 47 ] for commercial use [ 49 , 61 ].

In addition, the use of technologies connected to digital networks involves the risk of hacking and unauthorized surveillance [ 34 , 51 ], which can make people vulnerable [ 62 ]. Denning et al [ 67 ] found that home robots could not only be remotely located and identified but also hacked and controlled. First, users may have either preconceived and erroneous ideas about the capabilities of the device or a lack of knowledge to evaluate the safety, especially regarding data protection [ 3 ]. Second, users do not always configure their technological device correctly or update them [ 67 ].

Encryption or security systems must be put in place to protect users’ personal data captured by the devices at every stage: during collection, storage, transmission, and processing [ 3 ]. Researchers must also give particular attention to data security. In Europe, for instance, researchers and technology providers are required to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation [ 40 , 76 ]. Data collection must be performed legally or approved by the local relevant ethical committees.

To address data security challenges, 3 principles are recommended by Ienca et al [ 46 ] when developing technological devices: transparency, legitimate purpose, and proportionality. Transparency refers to the fact that the user knows that the system is collecting data and has consented to it. The user must also have precise information about when and what type of data are recorded and who has access to them [ 47 ]. Legitimate purpose refers to the notion that the monitoring and collection of data is performed for a specific purpose, (ie, in the best interest of the user or, if applicable, a relative who has consented to it). Finally, the principle of proportionality refers to the fact that the data collected are not disproportionate to the user’s needs.

Topic 4: Justice and Equity

The consequences of the technology implementation on the distribution of health care resources was discussed in the literature.

How Does Implementation or Withdrawal of the Technology Affect the Distribution of Health Care Resources?

Societal pressure.

Socioeconomic issues are also linked to the development and use of RCSs can also be raised. Individual freedom may be hindered by the “incentive” of certain stakeholders or authorities to enforce the use of RCSs [ 37 ]. The use of RCSs and similar systems may also lead to a lesser involvement of relatives, caregivers, and institutions that provide care to older adults and to the reduction of care costs; these perceived economic benefits may pressurize older adults to consent to use these devices [ 40 , 46 ]. It is also possible that older adults may have to agree to use the technological device to receive other health care benefits (eg, aids and subsidies) [ 42 ].

Digital Divide

Different opportunities to access RCSs can result in digital divide, defined by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [ 77 ] as a gap between those who have access to information and communication technologies and those who do not. This difference can create educational, economic, social, and even health-related disparities among citizens. Some citizens would be able to use these devices and, therefore, could benefit from their advantages, whereas others will not be able to use them and will not enjoy their benefits. The use of technologies in the health care context, through public or private institutions, should be subject to previous authorization by independent ethical committees to ensure that the use of these devices will not harm users in any way.

Inequalities in Resources

Questions about justice, equity, and equality among all citizens also arise [ 12 , 40 , 46 ]. RCSs have relatively high costs [ 64 ] and can generate additional expenses such as an internet subscription [ 3 ] that only a part of the population can afford, and this may be owing to the lack of research allowing to measure the cost-to-benefit ratio of these technologies on health [ 32 ]. It is important to ensure the access to RCSs among different living areas (ie, urban and rural). Therefore, involving municipalities and neighborhood associations seems an interesting way of raising awareness about the opportunities offered by RCSs for older adults and reaching a wider range of people.

To promote justice, equity, and fair distribution, Ienca et al [ 46 ] and Wangmo et al [ 64 ] recommend reducing the development costs of RCSs by promoting an open dissemination of source codes. In addition, RCSs should be distributed in priority to those in greatest need; therefore, measures to ensure access to RCSs under fair conditions should be established [ 51 ]. Joachim [ 78 ] also suggests to cover some of the costs of these health care–oriented technologies through health insurance.

Recommendations have been published by researchers to improve equality of access to technologies, such as using open-source software, providing priority access for individuals with low income, or relying on certain collective financing systems such as retirement or health insurance [ 46 , 51 , 78 ]. Discussions must be conducted among developers, legislators, and private and public organizations to identify viable financing solutions that allow for fair distribution of RCSs.

Replacement of Professionals

Researchers have also reported fears expressed by older adults and caregivers about how the use of technological devices could eliminate care-related jobs or replace humans [ 17 , 34 , 48 , 61 ]. There are also concerns about the use of these technological tools to reduce health care costs by decreasing the number of available health care resources and services, thereby exacerbating social inequalities [ 44 ]. The introduction of health-oriented RCSs requires adapting the contexts of care practices, which may threaten their quality [ 39 ]. Their incorporation into the care work environment can be difficult because the devices are automated and some care situations are unpredictable [ 17 , 62 ]. Furthermore, the gestion of certain tasks by technological devices requires a restructuring of the roles and responsibilities of caregivers [ 39 ]. Fiske et al [ 44 ] highlight that there are currently no recommendations or training to enable health care professionals to adopt RCSs, even though these professionals are increasingly confronted with technological devices in their practice.

The incorporation of RCSs must always be accompanied by a discussion with concerned care professionals regarding the advantages and limits of the technology. Professionals must also be supported in the use of these devices through effective training. Structured training and supervision will contribute to the development of a controlled framework of practice around the use of RCSs and thus avoid potential abuse [ 44 ]. Moreover, to encourage their use among professionals, it is essential to clearly define the role of RCSs as an additional resource for professionals and not a replacement of human care services [ 44 ].

Topic 5: Legislation

The ethical challenges linked to the lack of existing legislations and regulations dedicated to the use of the technology were discussed in the literature.

Can the Use of the Technology Pose Ethical Challenges That Have Not Been Considered in the Existing Legislations and Regulations?

Safety of devices.

The use of RCSs by older adults can result in damage and harm to their environment [ 79 ], especially when the device is still at the prototype stage [ 47 ]. Safety risks linked to the use of RCSs (eg, malfunctioning of the technology and incorrect decisions made by the coaching system) arise when they share a common space with humans and interact with them [ 39 ]. The following questions must be considered: Who is responsible in case of an accident, and who pays for the damages [ 39 , 40 , 48 , 62 , 80 ]? Is it the designer, the device, or the user himself? Currently, the civil code favors the cascade system (ie, first, the liability falls on the designer of the product; then, on the developer; and finally, on the user who has not followed the rules of use) [ 74 ]. However, the more the machine becomes autonomous, the less the existing legal frameworks can answer these questions [ 80 ]. This is a key legal issue regarding the implementation of RCSs in real settings because the person responsible for damage to the user or the environment may incur legal or even penal proceedings.

Damage and prejudice can also be caused by a failure to share authority [ 45 , 49 , 60 ]. Who between the human and the technological device holds the power to make decisions and control a functionality [ 81 ]? According to Grinbaum et al [ 45 ], it is important to specify the circumstances in which the human must take control over the technological device (RCS) and those in which the device should decide autonomously. According to Riek and Howard [ 49 ], it is preferable that in certain cases, the technological device, although autonomous, requires a human validation of its actions to keep the user in control of the device. In addition, Bensoussan and Puigmal [ 80 ] suggested the idea that technological devices must have an emergency stop button, so that the human can switch off the technology at any time.

Regulation of Technology

Currently, there is a gray area between the capabilities of RCSs, the reality of the field, and the regulations in force [ 38 ]. To accompany the researcher during the whole process of development and diffusion of RCSs, an ethical framework should be established [ 18 , 60 ]. Specifically, this can be in the form of an ethical code of conduct illustrating the expectations to all the employees of a company [ 18 ]. The researcher must regularly inform themselves about the ethics to be consistent with the evolution of the regulatory framework [ 60 ]. However, according to Nevejans [ 82 ], these ethical recommendations have no legal value and cannot protect humans from the damage caused by new technologies. Thus, it is necessary to think about a new legal framework to protect the users of RCSs [ 37 ].

The use of technologies, such as RCSs, in the health care field has grown significantly in recent years [ 17 , 18 ]. RCSs are increasingly being used for older adults with the aim of promoting healthy behaviors, quality of life, and well-being. However, the use of RCSs also raises several ethical challenges regarding the cost-to-benefit balance of these new care practices, respect for the autonomy of users, respect for privacy, justice and equity linked to their access, or need for a suitable legal framework. Such challenges could be addressed by establishing relevant recommendations for the development and use of RCSs. Some guidelines regarding the use of robotic systems have been published [ 49 , 83 ]. Moreover, in April 2021, the European Commission unveiled the first legal framework about AI [ 84 ]. However, to the best of our knowledge, no recommendations have been proposed in this field directly linked to an analysis of the literature dealing specifically with these ethical issues and potential solutions to address them.

This narrative review identified 25 articles in which authors highlighted ethical issues and recommendations related to the use of RCSs and similar technologies. The use of the EUnetHTA Core Model for the analysis of these articles made it possible to classify the information retrieved in the publications according to 5 main ethical topics—“benefit-harm balance,” “autonomy,” “respect for persons,” “justice and equity,” and “legislation”—and to provide a detailed analysis of RCS-related ethical issues. Our review also aimed to identify recommendations for better development, diffusion, and use of RCSs by a population of older adults.

Technology devices, such as RCSs, are used with older adults to enable them to live independently; to enhance their quality of life and well-being; and, therefore, to cope with the increasing care demands for older populations. RCSs may be used to encourage a range of health-related goals: physical, cognitive, nutritional, social, and emotional domains. To be effective, RCSs must be able to motivate the user by providing highly personalized care programs [ 85 , 86 ]. However, studies have shown that not all potential target users are included in the development of these devices [ 37 , 87 , 88 ]. Therefore, RCSs design might fail to meet a wide range of users’ needs, capabilities, and wishes. Thus, it is essential to apply “user-centered design” approaches and involve target users with various sociodemographic characteristics and technology experience throughout the development process. A strong involvement of the intended users of these systems in their design process would also improve the quality of the information provided to potential users of RCSs regarding their operation, type of data collected, and potential benefits of the technology. In this way, the involvement of the users would improve the quality of the process of obtaining the consent required from older adults to use the technology.

Another ethical challenge related to the use of RCSs is the fact that their wide implementation for older adults’ care may affect the distribution of health care resources. For instance, it has been found that for some older adults and informal and formal caregivers, the use of RCSs could replace humans in many caregiving tasks, eventually leading to a suppression of jobs or to a degradation of the quality of health care services [ 17 , 34 , 48 , 61 ]. In this regard, the participation of a third person (professional, volunteer, or family member) as a “human coach” could be considered when implementing RCSs in the older adults’ environment. This “human coach” could help build a “chain of trust” by being an intermediary between the RCS and the user. On the one hand, the involvement of a real person in the use of the RCS could reduce the risk of replacement of human assistance by technological assistance. On the other hand, the “human coach” could help enhance the acceptability and usability of the device, while at the same time, reassuring the user and providing recommendations to the developers, so that the RCS is consistent with users’ needs and desires. However, the benefits of involving a “human coach” in the RCS service provision has yet to be evaluated by scientific studies.

According to some studies [ 3 , 39 , 41 , 51 , 65 ], the use of RCSs can have an impact on social relationships, reducing human contact and even altering social relationships by creating tension between older adults and their caregivers. Thus, it would be interesting to identify the repercussions and implications of these devices in older adults’ daily life and in the life of the members of their social environment through new studies. It also seems necessary to evaluate the organizational impact of the implementation of RCSs and to identify potential obstacles to their use in the care professionals’ work context.

Our analysis also confirmed that for RCSs to provide personalized health-related recommendations, the collection of sensitive data is necessary. Data collection in this context also raises several ethical issues. For instance, personal data can be exposed to hacking and misuse. Proper data management, anonymization, and encryption are essential to protect the personal data of RCS users [ 86 ]. In addition, researchers and developers in this field must evaluate RCSs before implementation to ensure that they do not cause physical or moral harm to users. Thus, it has been suggested that stakeholders refer to local and regional regulatory and safety standards to guide their development and use.

Finally, our analysis also discussed how legal and ethical frameworks regarding the use of RCSs need to be adapted to cope with the constant development of new technologies. So far, existing legal frameworks are not yet adequate to respond effectively to the question of liability in case of damage caused by RCSs, particularly because these devices are becoming increasingly autonomous [ 80 ]. The establishment of “operational ethics committees in digital sciences and technologies” could help in the development and conduct of projects in this area [ 60 ]. Guidelines should be established to identify the types of applications and technological devices that require regulatory review and approval [ 44 ]. Research projects and working groups involving users, researchers, and lawyers should be set up to further investigate the legal and ethical issues related to the use of RCSs.

Some countries and regions, such as Europe and Japan have initiated the work of structuring relevant legal and ethical frameworks; however, their orientations and measures may differ culturally [ 78 ]. Future studies in the area of RCSs could consider the influence of cultural and socioeconomic specificities of the contexts of experimentation (countries and regions) regarding the acceptance and use of RCSs by older adults and formal and informal caregivers and regarding the definition of ethical and legal frameworks governing their uses. Therefore, the use of validated and widely applied analysis frameworks, for example, the Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic framework [ 89 ], formulated to measure countries’ commonalities in their approaches to the interpretation of behavioral research findings (eg, regarding technology adoption) could be interesting. The Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic framework [ 89 ] could help not only to explore the differences among countries regarding the validation and adoption of new technologies for older adult care but also to seek greater cultural and demographic diversity in technology research.

This dimension of cross-cultural comparison has received particular attention in the framework of a current international research partnership between Europe and Japan, such as the EU-Japan Virtual Coach for Smart Ageing (e-VITA) project. This project aims to develop a cross-cultural RCS that can be tailored to the needs of healthy older adults to promote aging well. The e-VITA RCS will be made available to older adults in their homes, which raises many of the ethical questions discussed in this paper. Therefore, the study will require the researchers to set up procedures adapted not only to the users but also to the 2 cultures (European and Japanese), respecting the corresponding ethical and legal regulations. Thus, it would be interesting to perform an analysis of the ethical issues raised by users from different countries and cultures within the framework of the e-VITA project.

Limitations

A narrative review of the literature was conducted to provide a nonexhaustive synthesis of the various ethical concerns and recommendations when using RCSs for older adults. This review has some limitations. Only articles in French and English were included. Some articles indicating ethical concerns or recommendations may not have been included when this information was not mentioned in the keywords or abstract.

Conclusions

The use of RCSs in the context of health care, particularly with an older adult population, tends to show many benefits. RCSs have the potential to improve the quality of life of older adults and their independence. When used in an ethical and appropriate manner, RCSs can help improve older adults’ emotions and cognitive and physical abilities and promote social relationships. By helping older adults to continue living at home for as long as possible, the use of health-oriented RCSs could help to address some of the challenges resulting from demographic aging. However, the use of these new health care technologies involves some ethical concerns, with the most cited issues being not only the risk of accidents, lack of reliability, loss of control, risk of deception, and risk of social isolation but also the confidentiality of data and liability in case of safety problems.

Some recommendations have been made in the past regarding the use of social and assistive robotic technologies for older adults, such as considering the opinion of target users; collecting their consent; training the care professionals to use them; and ensuring proper data management, anonymization, and encryption. However, the integration of RCSs in current health practices and, particularly, in the private homes of older adults can be disruptive. It requires the establishment of scalable and adapted ethical and regulatory frameworks that follow the technology progress and the social and digital change of society Thus, studies are needed to identify new ethical concerns arising from the organizational impact of the implementation of RCSs in different contexts, especially in the homes of older adults. The influence of cultural and socioeconomic specificities of the contexts of experimentation (countries and regions) regarding the acceptance and use of RCSs by older adults and formal and informal caregivers is also an area of interest for future studies.

Acknowledgments

This paper is a part of the EU-Japan Virtual Coach for Smart Ageing (e-VITA) project, which aims to develop a robotic coaching system for older adults [ 90 ]. The authors thank the collaborators who made this project possible: European Commission and Assistance Publique–Hôpitaux de Paris (Délégation à la Recherche Clinique et à l’Innovation). This review was based on data collected within the e-Vita project, funded by the European Union H2020 Program (grant 101016453) and the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication; grant JPJ000595).

Data Availability

Data sharing is not applicable to this paper as no data sets were generated or analyzed during this review.

Conflicts of Interest

None declared.

The selected relevant articles on ethical issues regarding the use of robotic coaching solutions for older adults.

• United Nations. Croissant à un rythme plus lent, la population mondiale devrait atteindre 9,7 milliards d'habitants en 2050 et pourrait atteindre près de 11 milliards vers 2100 : Rapport de l'ONU. United Nations, Population Division. United Nations; 2019. URL: https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_PressRelease_FR.pdf [accessed 2022-03-04]
• Rapport mondial sur le vieillissement et la santé. Organisation Mondiale de la Santé. 2016. URL: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/206556 [accessed 2022-03-04]
• Chung J, Demiris G, Thompson HJ. Ethical considerations regarding the use of smart home technologies for older adults: an integrative review. Annu Rev Nurs Res. 2016;34:155-181. [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Ganesan B, Gowda T, Al-Jumaily A, Fong KN, Meena SK, Tong RK. Ambient assisted living technologies for older adults with cognitive and physical impairments: a review. Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci. Dec 2019;23(23):10470-10481. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Palazzolo J, Baudu C, Quaderi A. Psychothérapies du Sujet Âgé: Prise en Charge des Pathologies du Vieillissement. 2nd edition. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Elsevier Masson; 2016.
• Principaux repères de l'OMS sur la démence. World Health Organization. URL: https://www.who.int/fr/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia [accessed 2022-03-04]
• Guilbaud A, Mailliez A, Boulanger É. Vieillissement: une approche globale, multidimensionnelle et préventive. Med Sci (Paris). Dec 09, 2020;36(12):1173-1180. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• op den Akker H, Klaassen R, op den Akker R, Jones VM, Hermens HJ. Proceedings of the 26th IEEE International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems. 2013. Presented at: CBMS '13; June 20-22, 2013:546-547; Porto, Portugal. URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6627870 [ CrossRef ]
• Görer B, Salah AA, Akın HL. A robotic fitness coach for the elderly. In: Augusto JC, Wichert R, Collier R, Keyson D, Salah AA, Tan AH, editors. Ambient Intelligence: Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 8309. Cham, Switzerland. Springer; 2013.
• Lete N, Beristain A, García-Alonso A. Survey on virtual coaching for older adults. Health Informatics J. Dec 01, 2020;26(4):3231-3249. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Siewiorek D, Smailagic A, Dey A. Architecture and applications of virtual coaches. Proc IEEE. Aug 2012;100(8):2472-2488. [ CrossRef ]
• Kamphorst BA. E-coaching systems: what they are, and what they aren't. Pers Ubiquit Comput. May 23, 2017;21(4):625-632. [ CrossRef ]
• Kyriazakos S, Schlieter H, Gand K, Caprino M, Corbo M, Tropea P, et al. A novel virtual coaching system based on personalized clinical pathways for rehabilitation of older adults-requirements and implementation plan of the vCare project. Front Digit Health. Oct 5, 2020;2:546562. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Wrobel J, Pino M, Wargnier P, Rigaud AS. Robots et agents virtuels au service des personnes âgées : une revue de l’actualité en gérontechnologie. NPG Neurol Psychiatr Geriatr. Aug 2014;14(82):184-193. [ CrossRef ]
• Pérez PJ, Garcia-Zapirain B, Mendez-Zorrilla A. Caregiver and social assistant robot for rehabilitation and coaching for the elderly. Technol Health Care. 2015;23(3):351-357. [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Fasola J, Mataric MJ. A socially assistive robot exercise coach for the elderly. J Hum-Robot Interact. 2013;2(2):3-32. [ CrossRef ]
• Cresswell K, Cunningham-Burley S, Sheikh A. Health care robotics: qualitative exploration of key challenges and future directions. J Med Internet Res. Jul 04, 2018;20(7):e10410. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Winfield AF, Jirotka M. Ethical governance is essential to building trust in robotics and artificial intelligence systems. Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. Oct 15, 2018;376(2133):20180085. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Broadbent E, Stafford R, MacDonald B. Acceptance of healthcare robots for the older population: review and future directions. Int J of Soc Robotics. Oct 3, 2009;1(4):319-330. [ CrossRef ]
• Abou Allaban A, Wang M, Padır T. A systematic review of robotics research in support of in-home care for older adults. Information. Jan 30, 2020;11(2):75. [ CrossRef ]
• Cortellessa G, De Benedictis R, Fracasso F, Orlandini A, Umbrico A, Cesta A. AI and robotics to help older adults: revisiting projects in search of lessons learned. Paladyn J Behav Robot. 2021;12(1):356-378. [ CrossRef ]
• Lima MR, Wairagkar M, Gupta M, Rodriguez y Baena F, Barnaghi P, Sharp DJ, et al. Conversational affective social robots for ageing and dementia support. IEEE Trans Cogn Dev Syst. Dec 2022;14(4):1378-1397. [ CrossRef ]
• Sidner CL, Bickmore T, Nooraie B, Rich C, Ring L, Shayganfar M, et al. Creating new technologies for companionable agents to support isolated older adults. ACM Trans Interact Intell Syst. Jul 24, 2018;8(3):1-27. [ CrossRef ]
• Pepito JA, Locsin RC, Constantino RE. Caring for older persons in a technologically advanced nursing future. Health. 2019;11(05):439-463. [ CrossRef ]
• Pinheiro PR, Pinheiro PG, Filho RH, Barrozo JP, Rodrigues JJ, Pinheiro LI, et al. Integration of the mobile robot and internet of things to monitor older people. IEEE Access. 2020;8:138922-138933. [ CrossRef ]
• Chatterjee A, Gerdes MW, Martinez S. eHealth initiatives for the promotion of healthy lifestyle and allied implementation difficulties. In: Proceedings of the 2019 International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications. 2019. Presented at: WiMOB '19; October 21-23, 2019:1-8; Barcelona, Spain. URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8923324 [ CrossRef ]
• Yousuf H, Reintjens R, Slipszenko E, Blok S, Somsen GA, Tulevski II, et al. Effectiveness of web-based personalised e‑Coaching lifestyle interventions. Neth Heart J. Jan 28, 2019;27(1):24-29. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Bevilacqua R, Casaccia S, Cortellessa G, Astell A, Lattanzio F, Corsonello A, et al. Coaching through technology: a systematic review into efficacy and effectiveness for the ageing population. Int J Environ Res Public Health. Aug 15, 2020;17(16):5930. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Justo R, Ben Letaifa L, Palmero C, Gonzalez-Fraile E, Torp Johansen A, Vázquez A, et al. Analysis of the interaction between elderly people and a simulated virtual coach. J Ambient Intell Human Comput. May 22, 2020;11(12):6125-6140. [ CrossRef ]
• Fiorini L, De Mul M, Fabbricotti I, Limosani R, Vitanza A, D'Onofrio G, et al. Assistive robots to improve the independent living of older persons: results from a needs study. Disabil Rehabil Assist Technol. Jan 22, 2021;16(1):92-102. [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Sriram V, Jenkinson C, Peters M. Informal carers' experience of assistive technology use in dementia care at home: a systematic review. BMC Geriatr. Jun 14, 2019;19(1):160. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Pilotto A, Boi R, Petermans J. Technology in geriatrics. Age Ageing. Nov 01, 2018;47(6):771-774. [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Koceska N, Koceski S, Beomonte Zobel P, Trajkovik V, Garcia N. A telemedicine robot system for assisted and independent living. Sensors (Basel). Feb 18, 2019;19(4):834. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Broadbent E. Interactions with robots: the truths we reveal about ourselves. Annu Rev Psychol. Jan 03, 2017;68(1):627-652. [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Suwa S, Tsujimura M, Ide H, Kodate N, Ishimaru M, Shimamura A, et al. Home-care professionals’ ethical perceptions of the development and use of home-care robots for older adults in Japan. Int J Hum Comput Interact. Mar 13, 2020;36(14):1295-1303. [ CrossRef ]
• Nordgren A. How to respond to resistiveness towards assistive technologies among persons with dementia. Med Health Care Philos. Sep 6, 2018;21(3):411-421. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Diaz-Orueta U, Hopper L, Konstantinidis E. Shaping technologies for older adults with and without dementia: reflections on ethics and preferences. Health Informatics J. Dec 2020;26(4):3215-3230. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Portacolone E, Halpern J, Luxenberg J, Harrison KL, Covinsky KE. Ethical issues raised by the introduction of artificial companions to older adults with cognitive impairment: a call for interdisciplinary collaborations. J Alzheimers Dis. 2020;76(2):445-455. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Boada JP, Maestre BR, Genís CT. The ethical issues of social assistive robotics: a critical literature review. Technol Soc. Nov 2021;67:101726. [ CrossRef ]
• Vandemeulebroucke T, Dierckx de Casterlé B, Gastmans C. The use of care robots in aged care: a systematic review of argument-based ethics literature. Arch Gerontol Geriatr. Jan 2018;74:15-25. [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Zafrani O, Nimrod G. Towards a holistic approach to studying human-robot interaction in later life. Gerontologist. Jan 09, 2019;59(1):e26-e36. [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Anderson J, Kamphorst B. Ethics of e-coaching: implications of employing pervasive computing to promote healthy and sustainable lifestyles. In: Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communication Workshops. 2014. Presented at: PerComW '14; March 24-28, 2014:351-356; Budapest, Hungary. [ CrossRef ]
• Danaher J. Robot betrayal: a guide to the ethics of robotic deception. Ethics Inf Technol. Jan 04, 2020;22(2):117-128. [ CrossRef ]
• Fiske A, Henningsen P, Buyx A. Your robot therapist will see you now: ethical implications of embodied artificial intelligence in psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy. J Med Internet Res. May 09, 2019;21(5):e13216. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Grinbaum A, Chatila R, Devillers L, Ganascia JG, Tessier C, Dauchet M. Ethics in robotics research: CERNA mission and context. IEEE Robot Automat Mag. Sep 2017;24(3):139-145. [ CrossRef ]
• Ienca M, Jotterand F, Vică C, Elger B. Social and assistive robotics in dementia care: ethical recommendations for research and practice. Int J of Soc Robotics. Jun 22, 2016;8(4):565-573. [ CrossRef ]
• Körtner T. Ethical challenges in the use of social service robots for elderly people. Z Gerontol Geriatr. Jun 25, 2016;49(4):303-307. [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Operto F. Ethics in advanced robotics. IEEE Robot Automat Mag. Mar 2011;18(1):72-78. [ CrossRef ]
• Riek LD, Howard DA. A Code of Ethics for the Human-Robot Interaction Profession. In: Proceedings of 2014 Conference on We Robot. 2014. Presented at: WeRobot '14; April 4-5, 2014:1; Coral Gables, FL. URL: https:/​/robots.​law.miami.edu/​2014/​wp-content/​uploads/​2014/​03/​a-code-of-ethics-for-the-human-robot-interaction-profession-riek-howard.​pdf
• Sharkey A, Sharkey N. Granny and the robots: ethical issues in robot care for the elderly. Ethics Inf Technol. Jul 3, 2010;14(1):27-40. [ CrossRef ]
• Yew GC. Trust in and ethical design of carebots: the case for ethics of care. Int J Soc Robot. May 23, 2021;13(4):629-645. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• HTA Core Model ® version 3. EUnetHTA. URL: http://www.corehta.info/model/HTACoreModel3.0.pdf [accessed 2022-03-04]
• Health technology assessment process: fundamentals. EUPATI Toolbox. 2015. URL: https://toolbox.eupati.eu/resources/health-technology-assessment-process-fundamentals/ [accessed 2022-03-04]
• Tuli TB, Terefe TO, Rashid MM. Telepresence mobile robots design and control for social interaction. Int J Soc Robot. Jul 13, 2021;13(5):877-886. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Green BN, Johnson CD, Adams A. Writing narrative literature reviews for peer-reviewed journals: secrets of the trade. J Chiropr Med. Sep 2006;5(3):101-117. [ CrossRef ]
• Isabet B, Pino M, Lewis M, Benveniste S, Rigaud AS. Social telepresence robots: a narrative review of experiments involving older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Int J Environ Res Public Health. Mar 30, 2021;18(7):3597. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Naudé B, Rigaud AS, Pino M. Video calls for older adults: a narrative review of experiments involving older adults in elderly care institutions. Front Public Health. Jan 14, 2021;9:751150. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Saarni S, Hofmann B, Lampe K, Lühmann D, Mäkelä M, Velasco-Garrido M, et al. Ethical analysis to improve decision-making on health technologies. Bull World Health Organ. Aug 01, 2008;86(8):617-623. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Lampe K, Mäkelä M, Garrido MV, Anttila H, Autti-Rämö I, Hicks NJ, et al. The HTA core model: a novel method for producing and reporting health technology assessments. Int J Technol Assess Health Care. Dec 23, 2009;25(S2):9-20. [ CrossRef ]
• Collectif C. Éthique de la recherche en robotique. ALLISTENE. 2014. URL: http://cerna-ethics-allistene.org/digitalAssets/38/38704_Avis_robotique_livret.pdf [accessed 2024-04-02]
• Tisseron S. Introduction. In: Tisseron S, Tordo F, editors. Robots, de Nouveaux Partenaires de Soins Psychiques. Fairfield CA. Érès Publication; 2018.
• Frennert S, Östlund B. How do older people think and feel about robots in health- and elderly care? In: Proceedings of the 2018 INBOTS Conference on Inclusive Robotics for a Better Society. 2018. Presented at: INBOTS '18; October 16-18, 2018:167-174; Pisa, Italy. URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-24074-5_28 [ CrossRef ]
• van Maris A, Zook N, Caleb-Solly P, Studley M, Winfield A, Dogramadzi S. Designing ethical social robots-a longitudinal field study with older adults. Front Robot AI. Jan 24, 2020;7:1. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Wangmo T, Lipps M, Kressig RW, Ienca M. Ethical concerns with the use of intelligent assistive technology: findings from a qualitative study with professional stakeholders. BMC Med Ethics. Dec 19, 2019;20(1):98. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Portet F, Vacher M, Rossato S. Les technologies de la parole et du TALN pour l’assistance à domicile des personnes âgées : un rapide tour d’horizon (quick tour of NLP and speech technologies for ambient assisted living). In: Proceedings of the 2012 Workshop on Interactions Langagières pour personnes Agées Dans les habitats Intelligents. 2012. Presented at: ILADI '12; June 4-8, 2012; Grenoble, France. URL: https://aclanthology.org/W12-1402.pdf
• Bradwell HL, Winnington R, Thill S, Jones RB. Ethical perceptions towards real-world use of companion robots with older people and people with dementia: survey opinions among younger adults. BMC Geriatr. Jul 14, 2020;20(1):244. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Denning T, Matuszek C, Koscher K, Smith JR, Kohno T. A spotlight on security and privacy risks with future household robots: attacks and lessons. In: Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Ubiquitous computing. 2009. Presented at: UbiComp '09; September 30-October 3, 2009:105-114; Orlando, FL. URL: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1620545.1620564 [ CrossRef ]
• Papadopoulos I, Koulouglioti C, Lazzarino R, Ali S. Enablers and barriers to the implementation of socially assistive humanoid robots in health and social care: a systematic review. BMJ Open. Jan 09, 2020;10(1):e033096. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Pripfl J, Kortner T, Batko-Klein D. Results of a real world trial with a mobile social service robot for older adults. In: Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. 2016. Presented at: HRI '16; March 7-10, 2016:497-498; Christchurch, New Zealand. URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7451824 [ CrossRef ]
• Peek ST, Wouters EJ, van Hoof J, Luijkx KG, Boeije HR, Vrijhoef HJ. Factors influencing acceptance of technology for aging in place: a systematic review. Int J Med Inform. Apr 2014;83(4):235-248. [ FREE Full text ] [ CrossRef ] [ Medline ]
• Lespinet-Najib V, Roche A, Chibaudel Q. Santé et handicap: d'une conception centrée «utilisateur» à la conception universelle. Ann Mines Réal Ind. 2017;2:25-27. [ CrossRef ]
• Déclaration d’Helsinki de l’AMM – Principes éthiques applicables à la recherche médicale impliquant des êtres humains. L'Association Médicale Mondiale. URL: https:/​/www.​wma.net/​fr/​policies-post/​declaration-dhelsinki-de-lamm-principes-ethiques-applicables-a-la-recherche-medicale-impliquant-des-etres-humains/​ [accessed 2022-02-03]
• Adams S, Niezen M. Digital ‘solutions’ to unhealthy lifestyle ‘problems’: the construction of social and personal risks in the development of eCoaches. Health Risk Soc. Feb 06, 2016;17(7-8):530-546. [ CrossRef ]
• Saerens P. Le droit des robots, un droit de l’homme en devenir ? Commun Technol Dév. Jun 30, 2020;(8). [ CrossRef ]
• Jenkins S, Draper H. Care, monitoring, and companionship: views on care robots from older people and their carers. Int J of Soc Robotics. Sep 15, 2015;7(5):673-683. [ CrossRef ]
• Règlement (UE) 2016/679 du parlement européen et du Conseil du 27 avril 2016 relatif à la protection des personnes physiques à l'égard du traitement des données à caractère personnel et à la libre circulation de ces données, et abrogeant la directive 95/46/CE (règlement général sur la protection des données) (Texte présentant de l'intérêt pour l'EEE). Le Parlement Européen Et Le Conseil De L'union Européenne. 2016. URL: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/fra [accessed 2022-02-03]
• Understanding the digital divide. OECD Digital Economy Papers. 2001. URL: https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/oecstiaab/49-en.htm [accessed 2024-04-02]
• Joachim C. Silver economy, robotique et droit - Comparaison franco-japonaise. Centre d’études et de Coopération Juridique Interdisciplinaire – Université de Poitier. Jan 2020. URL: https://hal.science/hal-03147937/document [accessed 2024-04-05]
• Kernaghan K. The rights and wrongs of robotics: ethics and robots in public organizations. Can Public Adm. Dec 12, 2014;57(4):485-506. [ CrossRef ]
• Bensoussan A, Puigmal L. Le droit des robots ? Quelle est l'autonomie de décision d'une machine ? Quelle protection mérite-t-elle ? Arch Philos Droit. 2017;59(1):165-174. [ CrossRef ]
• Tessier C. Robots autonomy: some technical issues. In: Lawless WF, Mittu R, Sofge D, Russell S, editors. Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence: A Threat or Savior? Cham, Switzerland. Springer; 2017:179-194.
• Nevejans N. Comment protéger l'homme face aux robots ? Arch Phil Droit. 2017;59(1):131-163. [ CrossRef ]
• Tambornino L, Lanzerath D, Rodrigues R, Wright D. SIENNA D4.3: survey of REC approaches and codes for artificial intelligence and robotics. Zenodo. Aug 19, 2019. URL: https://zenodo.org/records/4067990 [accessed 2024-04-04]
• Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI. Shaping Europe's Digital Future. URL: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai [accessed 2022-07-15]
• Kamali ME, Angelini L, Caon M, Carrino F, Rocke C, Guye S, et al. Virtual coaches for older adults’ wellbeing: a systematic review. IEEE Access. 2020;8:101884-101902. [ CrossRef ]
• Banos O, Nugent C. E-coaching for health. Computer. Mar 2018;51(3):12-15. [ CrossRef ]
• Gustafson DH, McTavish F, Gustafson DH, Mahoney JE, Johnson RA, Lee JD, et al. The effect of an information and communication technology (ICT) on older adults’ quality of life: study protocol for a randomized control trial. Trials. Apr 25, 2015;16(1):3-8. [ CrossRef ]
• Sakaguchi-Tang DK, Cunningham JL, Roldan W, Yip J, Kientz JA. Co-design with older adults: examining and reflecting on collaboration with aging communities. Proc ACM Hum Comput Interact. Oct 18, 2021;5(CSCW2):1-28. [ CrossRef ]
• Henrich J, Heine SJ, Norenzayan A. The weirdest people in the world? Behav Brain Sci. Jun 15, 2010;33(2-3):61-83. [ CrossRef ]
• EU-Japan virtual coach for smart ageing. e-VITA Consortium. URL: https://www.e-vita.coach/ [accessed 2024-04-05]

Abbreviations

Edited by A Mavragani; submitted 12.04.23; peer-reviewed by J Sedlakova, S Liu; comments to author 20.08.23; revised version received 22.12.23; accepted 12.03.24; published 18.06.24.

©Cécilia Palmier, Anne-Sophie Rigaud, Toshimi Ogawa, Rainer Wieching, Sébastien Dacunha, Federico Barbarossa, Vera Stara, Roberta Bevilacqua, Maribel Pino. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 18.06.2024.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

Help | Advanced Search

Mathematics > Numerical Analysis

Title: differentiable programming for differential equations: a review.

Abstract: The differentiable programming paradigm is a cornerstone of modern scientific computing. It refers to numerical methods for computing the gradient of a numerical model's output. Many scientific models are based on differential equations, where differentiable programming plays a crucial role in calculating model sensitivities, inverting model parameters, and training hybrid models that combine differential equations with data-driven approaches. Furthermore, recognizing the strong synergies between inverse methods and machine learning offers the opportunity to establish a coherent framework applicable to both fields. Differentiating functions based on the numerical solution of differential equations is non-trivial. Numerous methods based on a wide variety of paradigms have been proposed in the literature, each with pros and cons specific to the type of problem investigated. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of existing techniques to compute derivatives of numerical solutions of differential equations. We first discuss the importance of gradients of solutions of differential equations in a variety of scientific domains. Second, we lay out the mathematical foundations of the various approaches and compare them with each other. Third, we cover the computational considerations and explore the solutions available in modern scientific software. Last but not least, we provide best-practices and recommendations for practitioners. We hope that this work accelerates the fusion of scientific models and data, and fosters a modern approach to scientific modelling.

Submission history

Access paper:.

• Other Formats

References & Citations

• Google Scholar
• Semantic Scholar

BibTeX formatted citation

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Code, data and media associated with this article, recommenders and search tools.

• Institution

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .

• Open access
• Published: 12 June 2024

To assess the knowledge, attitudes, and confidence of caregivers and administrators towards the oral health of nursing home residents in San Antonio, Texas

• Joseph Dumbuya 1 ,
• Rochisha S. Marwaha 1 ,
• Pankil K. Shah 2 &
• Suman Challa 1  

BMC Geriatrics volume  24 , Article number:  511 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

96 Accesses

Metrics details

The primary objective of this research was to use qualitative methods to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and confidence of caregivers in their ability to provide oral hygiene assistance to residents. The secondary objective was to assess the knowledge and attitude of administrators on the provision of oral hygiene assistance for residents, and their confidence in caregivers’ ability to provide oral hygiene assistance to nursing home residents in San Antonio, Texas.

A semi-structured interview guide was used to conduct face-to-face interviews with seven caregivers and twelve administrative staff from ten nursing homes in San Antonio, Texas. Employees in nursing homes who are caring for residents are referred to as caregivers and those whom they care for are referred to as nursing home residents. One survey instrument was developed for the caregiver’s knowledge, attitude, and confidence toward providing oral health care, and another to assess the administrator’s knowledge, attitude, and confidence in caregivers providing oral care for nursing home residents. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded for thematic content.

The findings revealed that caregivers and administrators had adequate knowledge of the connection between oral and systemic health. The administrators were confident that caregivers were adequately trained to provide oral hygiene care for residents. Caregivers had a positive attitude toward the importance of good oral health. They regularly assessed the residents’ oral health, but due to time constraints, staffing shortages, and other competing tasks providing oral health care to the residents was challenging. Most caregivers were confident in their skills in providing oral care for the residents since 85.6% agreed. On the contrary, almost half of the administrators were confident that caregivers have the necessary skills to provide oral care for residents, while 41.7% were unsure.

Conclusions

The study gave a broader insight into the provision of oral care in nursing home residents from the perspectives of caregivers and administrative staff. Administrators must provide caregivers with adequate training and time so they can provide adequate oral health care for the residents.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Since 2012, the older adult population aged 65 and older in the United States has experienced a rising trajectory and by the year 2050, this population was projected to be around 83.6 million, almost double the estimated 2012 population of 43.1 million [ 1 ]. As recent as 2011, about 4.1% of adults over the age of 65 years live in nursing homes, and about 15% of residents 85 years and older residing in nursing homes across the United States [ 2 ]. The city of San Antonio in Texas has a population of 243,000 inhabitants above the age of 60 years, and that population was expected to double by the year 2040 [ 3 ]. Older adults in nursing homes were more susceptible to poor oral health due to negligence, which led to unnecessary delays in responding to oral health issues, eventually affecting general health [ 4 , 5 , 6 ].

Poor oral hygiene, periodontal disease, and disease-causing bacteria in the oral cavity were associated with systemic diseases such as pneumonia, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes [ 6 ]. Pneumonia accounts for 13–48% of nursing home-related infections and had a 55% mortality rate among older adults residing in nursing homes. The aspiration of bacteria secretions from the oropharyngeal space into the lower respiratory tract was the primary pathway for bacterial pneumonia infections, particularly in patients with periodontal disease [ 2 ]. Nursing home residents with chronic diseases, degenerative nerve diseases that cause dysphagia, and those who use nasogastric or percutaneous enterogastric tubes were at a higher risk of bacteria-induced pneumonia [ 7 ]. The application of effective tooth brushing techniques, regular cleaning of dentures, and routine treatment by dentists and hygienists can decrease the rate of aspiration pneumonia in nursing home residents [ 6 ].

Most nursing home residents had poor manual dexterity and were heavily dependent on the knowledge and skills of caregivers (registered nurse (RN), licensed vocational nurse (LVN), certified nursing assistants (CNA), and medical aides) to care for their oral health. For this reason, it was essential for caregivers and administrators (social workers, Nursing home administrators, directors and assistant directors of nursing (DON) to have adequate knowledge of oral health care so they can successfully care for these residents [ 8 ]. Caregivers who were knowledgeable about caring for older adults were inclined to improve the patient’s health status, which can satisfy the expectations of the patient and their families [ 9 ]. Additionally, caregivers who had adequate knowledge, positive attitude, and skills to care for older adults in nursing homes had fewer problems in meeting the job’s daily demands and responded empathetically to the daily oral care of residents [ 10 ].

The negative attitudes of some caregivers towards oral care had affected the quality of care they provide for older adults, which can eventually lead to unfavorable oral health outcomes [ 11 ]. A cross-sectional study conducted by Lui et al. (2017) found that highly educated caregivers exhibited significant knowledge of oral health and a positive attitude toward oral hygiene care for patients [ 12 ]. Goh et al. (2016) investigated the perspectives and attitudes of caregivers toward oral care and found that caregivers had positive attitudes toward providing oral care, but about 50% lacked the confidence to provide oral care for the residents [ 13 ].

The confidence of caregivers in the delivery of oral healthcare can affect the caregiver’s ability to perform clinical tasks, quality of care, and patient’s oral health outcomes, and potentially further impact their relationships with patients and the healthcare team [ 14 ].

Studies had been performed to assess caregivers’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding the oral hygiene assistance of nursing home residents internationally [ 12 , 15 , 16 ]. However, there were no reported studies regarding the assessment of the knowledge, attitudes, and confidence of caregivers in the provision of oral hygiene assistance to nursing home residents in the United States. This study aims to address the gaps in the literature regarding the beliefs and behaviors of caregivers and administrative staff in the provision of oral hygiene assistance for nursing home residents in San Antonio, Texas, and provide a new perspective for future studies. The primary objective of this research was to use qualitative methods to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and confidence of caregivers in their ability to provide oral hygiene assistance to residents. The secondary objective was to assess the knowledge and attitude of administrators in the provision of oral hygiene assistance for residents, and their confidence in caregivers’ ability to provide oral hygiene assistance to nursing home residents in San Antonio, Texas.

This research was deemed exempt (protocol number: 20210714NRR) by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. Twenty nursing homes in San Antonio that were affiliated with the University of Texas Health San Antonio School of Dentistry were randomly selected and invited to participate in the study. Out of twenty nursing homes invited to participate in the study, only 10 agreed to allow their staff to participate in the study. Nursing homes in San Antonio vary in size with 20–30 caregivers and 3–5 administrators per site. The study population included caregivers and administrators working at nursing homes or long-term care facilities in San Antonio, Texas. Registered nurses (RNs) licensed vocational nurses (LVNs), certified nursing assistants (CNAs), and medical aides are referred to as caregivers while social workers, nursing home administrators, directors, and assistant directors of nursing were referred to as administrators. Out of 250 caregivers and 40 administrators from 10 nursing homes who were eligible for the study, we were only able to recruit 7 caregivers and 12 administrators using a non-probability convenience sampling method. This study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it was difficult to get more than 19 volunteers to participate in the study.

All caregivers and administrators who had worked at the nursing homes for at least three months, were 18 years and older, communicated in the English language, and voluntarily consented to participate in the study were eligible to participate. The participants who did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded from the study. Also, participants provided informed consent by signing a consent form when they arrived at the interview location and before engaging in the interview. The participants were not offered any incentives for their involvement in the study.

A semi-structured interview guide developed from previous oral healthcare-related studies [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ] that examined the knowledge, attitudes, practices, and confidence of various populations regarding oral healthcare was used to conduct face-to-face interviews with caregivers and administrators at nursing homes in San Antonio. Two different survey instruments were used for interviewing the caregivers and administrators. The first part of the interviews collected demographic data for the participants, such as age, gender, experience, and education. The following sections included questions to assess the knowledge of caregivers and administrators regarding oral health and their attitudes regarding the provision of oral care for nursing home residents. The final sections focus on assessing the caregiver’s confidence and administrators’ confidence in caregivers providing daily oral care for residents.

Each interview was conducted in a private space to maintain the confidentiality of the participant and lasted for 20–30 min. The interviewer obtained written informed consent before the interview, and the interviewer asked all the questions including the demographic questions. The interviews were conducted between October 2021 and January 2022 by a member of the research team and digitally recorded on an encrypted laptop, with only the research team having access to it. Data collected from study participants were stored in a safe and locked storage space at the University. The identity and confidentiality of the participants and collected data were protected throughout the study procedures.

Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and hand-coded to form themes by one team member, and a qualitative data management software technology MAXQDA was used to code and generate themes by another team member using calibration among coders. The themes were compared between the two coders and a third member of the team broke the tie if the coders disagreed on t theme. The confidence-based questions were categorized on a 5-point Likert scale as it allows for a lower margin of error and provided a deeper insight. The themes gleaned from key-informant interviews were explored among team members which were followed by a discussion for quality assurance purposes.

The demographic data of caregivers ( N  = 7) and administrative staff ( N  = 12) from 10 nursing homes across San Antonio is shown in Table  1 .

Most of the study participants were female (79%), more than half of the caregivers had a high school education, and (43%) had an associate degree. All the administrators had an associate degree or higher and the participants’ mean work experience was 13.8 years.

Both the hand-coded and the MAXQDA software data analysis of the Interview data on the knowledge questions resulted in the themes, the connection between oral and systemic health, and training in oral health and oral healthcare. Interview data on attitudes resulted in the themes, the importance of good oral health, caregivers’ time constraints, and assessment of residents’ oral health.

Themes related to oral health knowledge-based questions

Theme 1: The connection between oral and systemic health : Most caregivers and staff understood the connection between oral and systemic health. They were aware that most nursing home residents had two or more morbidities some of which may lead to mortality if not treated accordingly. Their understanding of the connection between systemic and oral diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and the side effects of certain medications on oral health has incentivized caregivers to care for the resident’s oral health to prevent the systemic spread of disease.

“At their age, if they (resident) get a tooth infection, that can travel through their bloodstream…and the resident needs to understand that. ” Caregiver.

“If you have poor oral hygiene, it can lead to infections in your system. You can get pneumonia; I think you can get it from poor oral health. It’s like a big problem: the chain of events that can lead to other things.” Administrator.

“The mouth is the gateway to your heart and the condition of your mouth will tell a lot of things about your health in general. If you are not getting good oral care, you are going to get more health issues as you progress in life, especially if you are elderly. “Administrator.

“If a resident has an infection from a tooth, it can travel throughout their body and may cause death…. I know in the past, we had problems with a patient because of tooth infection, which led to other issues with their health.” Administrator.

Theme 2: Training in oral health : Caregivers and administrators mentioned that they need more training to improve their oral health knowledge and learn new techniques to work with residents on ventilators and those with dementia who sometimes refuse or resist care. They also indicated that receiving continuing education (CE) on oral care will raise their level of awareness, increase their confidence in the delivery of oral care and hygiene, and improve health outcomes. One administrator also stressed the need to improve the curriculum of the certified nursing assistant (CNA) programs so they can get more hours of oral health education.

“More training will help a lot because sometimes we try different ways to do it, but it does not work out, so we need more information, and more training because dental care is very important.” Caregiver.

“I have been an instructor for the CNA program, and I know the training is good. If it comes from a dentist, it will probably be better regarding what the resident needs. But it is not something we can offer at this time. The training is there, but it is probably not as accepted as it should be, which needs improvement.” Administrator.

“There would be some new people coming in and may need more training on brushing teeth and doing denture care; some may be different from others. I am all up for new training and learning new things.” Caregiver.

“We need more training on the provision of oral care for residents, we need more individuals who are confident enough to train caregivers to provide oral hygiene assistance for residents. Oral care is an expertise so we need more education on that.” Administrator.

In response to the attitude-based questions, the themes that emerged were the importance of good oral health, caregivers’ time constraints, and residents’ oral health assessment.

Themes related to oral health attitude-based questions

Theme 3: The importance of good oral health : Almost all participants stressed the importance of good oral health and its impact on the residents’ overall health and well-being. They acknowledged that good oral health enables residents to consume their food adequately and absorb critical micronutrients, which were essential for the growth and function of their immune cells. Administrators believed that residents with compromised immune systems were more susceptible to chronic diseases that can be fatal. Good oral health can prevent aspiration pneumonia and other chronic diseases prevalent in nursing homes.

“Good oral health contributes to the health of the body. If you have good oral health, you tend to eat more, better, and more adequately. You will also be more likely to take your medication and be more outgoing because you feel comfortable about how you look.” Caregiver. “Residents with good oral health may have better health outcomes and be in a good mood. Good oral health makes them a whole different person, they can eat better, and their health is better.” Administrator. “In this nursing home, good oral health was essential because many patients were under ventilator and gastrostomy. Good oral health will decrease their risk of aspiration pneumonia, which was a horrible thing sometimes, we have here.” Administrator. “I think good oral health is important, especially for those who cannot do oral care because their disease process does not allow them to remember how to do it. It was also important for the caregivers to do it daily, and the family needs to see that oral care was performed and they are not going to visit their loved one and see food in their teeth… or a bad odor coming from their mouth.” Administrator.

Theme 4: Caregiver’s time constraints :. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, some nursing homes had a proportion of 14 residents per caregiver. This situation worsened during the pandemic because nursing homes were competing with hospitals to employ caregivers. Almost all the caregivers and administrators stated that the shortage of caregivers, staff taking time off from work, absenteeism, and other competing tasks limited the time caregivers must provide oral care for the residents.

“Sometimes we have no time to care for the oral health of the residents. We have like 60 patients and 2 or 3 people to care for them, so we have no time.” Caregiver. “I don’t think they had enough time. I had always thought you had 30 patients in a hallway, and you only had two CNAs. They usually split it, and most of them require two persons’ help, limiting their time with all the chores they must do to take care of the patients.” Administrator. “I don’t think they are allowed enough time. If you have call-ins and you cannot get somebody to come in, then they are working short… they must be on that routine base, and they had to make sure they cover the shift and provide care for all the residents.” Administrator. “Making sure that caregivers had enough time to do their work is a challenge. Time management is everything but it also depends on what going on with your patients, what is going on in the hall, and how you are staffed, it depends on lots of things coming into play.” Administrator. “Our ratio of patient to caregiver is probably 1:12 and if they experience call-ins or no show then the ratio will increase from there so it is really hard to provide good oral hygiene if you are rushing from one patient to the next. Also, some of our resident’s caseloads just grow if there was a shortage of staffing and we don’t feel we had enough time as each day fluctuates. “Administrator.

Theme 5: Assessment of residents’ oral health : The state of Texas regulatory services for nursing homes requires that nursing home residents participate in an annual health screening to assess their oral health status so that nursing home administrators can plan and facilitate the provision of oral care for residents. Initial oral health assessment of newly admitted residents was also required for all nursing homes, served as a baseline, and was essential for planning and treating chronic oral diseases. Additionally, the regular assessment of the resident’s oral cavity helped caregivers determine the type of diet (soft or regular) that was suitable for the resident and subsequently enabled the nutritionist to plan the resident’s diet accordingly.

“As part of the initial assessment process, we examined the resident’s oral cavity to determine if they had total or partial dentures so we can plan for their oral care.” Caregiver. “We do initial oral health assessment for the residents upon arrival to our facility…. the nurses check their oral mucosa, gums, teeth, check for oral sores, thrush, and a partial denture or edentulous so we can carefully plan for the resident’s oral care and food type.” Administrator. “They had to assess the oral health of residents and if there were any oral issues they (caregivers) must report to the doctor, social worker, or director of nursing so they can attend to their needs.” Administrator. “We had to assess the resident’s oral cavity for missing teeth, chipped teeth, full or partial dentures… upon admission and document it. If we fail to identify any existing oral problems upon admission and something happens later then it will be our responsibility to care for that. So, it is important that we do an initial and regular assessment of the resident’s oral health.” Administrator.

Confidence of caregivers and administrators in the provision of oral health care

Confidence of caregivers relates to their confidence in the provision of oral care for residents. Administrators’ confidence in the provision of oral care relates to their confidence in their caregiver’s provision of oral health care.

The responses to the confidence-based questions for seven caregivers were based on a 5-point Likert scale (Table  2 ).

In response to questions on caregivers’ skills and denture care for residents, most caregivers agreed that they were confident in their skills to provide oral care (85.6%) and denture care (71.3%) for the residents, respectively. When asked about their confidence in providing oral care to resistive residents and discussing the harmful effects of tobacco use with the residents, most caregivers agreed that they were confident in working with combative residents (85.6%) and discussing tobacco use (57%) respectively.

The responses to the confidence-based questions for twelve administrators were also based on a 5-point Likert scale (Table  3 ).

The administrators were asked about caregivers’ confidence in providing adequate care for the residents and whether their diet contained essential nutrients for optimal oral health. Most of the administrators were confident that caregivers provided adequate care for the residents (66.7%) and that the resident’s diet contained all the nutrients to maintain optimal oral health (75%). In response to the question on caregivers’ skills to provide oral care, half of the administrators (50%were confident that their caregivers had adequate skills to provide oral care for residents, while 41.7% were unsure. Regarding training, administrators were confident that caregivers were adequately trained since 50% agreed with the statement.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study conducted in the United States that assessed the knowledge, attitudes, and confidence of caregivers and administrators in the provision of oral care for nursing home residents. Our findings showed that caregivers and administrators have adequate knowledge about the connection between oral and systemic health which is broadly consistent with previous studies [ 21 , 22 ]. A 2009 study to evaluate the importance of oral health in nursing homes revealed that older adults were more susceptible to chronic systemic diseases that can affect their overall health, and periodontal disease has been linked to systemic conditions through inflammatory processes [ 21 ]. In our study, caregivers and administrators were knowledgeable about the connection between oral and systemic health and that infection in the oral cavity can metastasize to other body organs through the bloodstream. They also understood that poor oral hygiene can lead to aspiration pneumonia prevalent among nursing home residents.

Another theme that emerged from the study was the need for more training for caregivers in providing oral care for the residents, which was consistent with previous studies [ 23 , 24 , 25 ]. Although caregivers and administrators were knowledgeable about oral health, a vast majority of caregivers requested continuing education (CE) to improve their knowledge and enhance their skills in providing oral healthcare for hostile and resistant patients. Additionally, almost half of the administrators felt that caregivers were adequately trainedto provide oral care for residents. Administrators who were responsible for planning and implementing CE programs for caregivers stated that they could not offer such programs due to staffing shortages, lack of time, and logistical challenges involved in implementing such programs. As a result, they are highly dependent on the oral care knowledge the Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) acquired from their CNA training programs which may be insufficient.

Caregivers’ time constraints emerged as a significant barrier to providing care for residents, consistent with other studies (23–24,). In this study, nearly all the administrators agreed that the caregivers lack sufficient time to provide oral care for the residents due to competing tasks, and staffing shortages leading to 1 caregiver caring for 8–10 residents at a time. Additionally, it was time-consuming to provide care for residents with dementia and combative residents. In a systematic review of studies on the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs acting as barriers and facilitators for the provision of oral care, the authors found that it takes plenty of time to provide oral care to combative patients [ 26 ]. On the contrary, in a 2011 cross-sectional study performed in Sweden, the authors found that the nursing staff believed they had sufficient time to perform oral care practices [ 27 ].

Both caregivers and administrators understood the importance of good oral health which was consistent with previous studies [ 20 , 28 ]. Coleman (2002) found that effective oral care practice was about recognizing the importance and ensuring that daily oral hygiene care was given similar priority as bathing residents, combing their hair, administering medication, and other care practices [ 28 ]. In this study, caregivers believed that oral care was essential for nursing home residents, especially those on ventilators and gastrostomy. Residents with gastrostomy cannot be fed through the oral cavity resulting in neglect of oral care. Maeda and Akagi (2014) found that patients with limited oral intake or tube feeders need meticulous oral care to reduce poor clinical outcomes related to aspiration pneumonia [ 29 ].

Most participants revealed they must perform an initial assessment of the resident’s oral health before admission to their facility and whenever they complain of toothache. Some participants also explained that they sometimes could not adequately assess the resident’s teeth and periodontal structures due to a lack of cooperation by the residents. In a study performed in 2009, the authors stated that oral care was i not always adequately evaluated during assessments of the general health of residents due to lack of patient cooperation, time, restricted mouth opening, unpleasant nature of the task, lack of training, and knowledge [ 21 ].

Our study indicated that most of the caregivers agreed that they were confident in their skills in providing oral and denture care for the residents. However, administrators were confident in the caregiver’s ability and skills to provide oral and denture care for the residents. This is consistent with a 2014 study that reported that more caregivers felt confident in assisting residents with brushing their teeth than with flossing [ 30 ]. However, a cross-sectional study found that half of the caregivers lack confidence in providing oral care because of fear of harming the patient [ 13 ]. In our study, caregivers mentioned their challenges with providing oral care for residents on ventilators, but their experience had given them the confidence to provide adequate care.

One of the strengths of this study is that the interviews were conducted by a dentist who had no prior encounter with the participants, making it possible for participants to respond to the questions openly thereby reducing the potential for bias. Another strength of the study was that using qualitative methods provided insights into the attitudes of the respondents and why they agreed or disagreed with some of the questions and comments. Despite several strengths of this study, there were some limitations.

The study used a convenience sampling method to recruit participants, which may have led to selection bias. Most of the participants in the study were those who wanted to see positive change in the provision of oral care for residents, which may have accounted for response and social desirability bias. Participants may not have felt comfortable talking about their lack of confidence and abilities to a dentist for fear of being judged by an oral health expert, especially a dentist. They may have felt pressured to give good answers to look competent in the eyes of a dentist. Another limitation is that caregivers who volunteered to participate in the study may have been those who felt confident with their knowledge and skills, thus overestimating the caregiver’s knowledge and skills compared to the general caregiver population. Participant recruitment was a major challenge due to staffing shortages and COVID-19 restrictions in nursing homes. On several occasions, scheduled interviews with participants were canceled due to COVID-19 outbreaks and other emergencies which inadvertently prolonged the time for data collection. Although we assumed the sample is representative of nursing homes throughout Texas, the findings of this study may not be generalized to all nursing home residents in the United States due to possible differences in the regulation of oral care in nursing homes across states. Lastly, the question of whether caregivers had adequate time to perform oral hygiene care was not included in the survey instrument thereby limiting caregivers’ responses to the lack of adequate time to perform their daily tasks.

The study gave a broader insight into the provision of oral care in nursing homes from the perspectives of caregivers and administrative staff. Administrators must provide adequate training and time to caregivers so they can provide adequate oral health care for the residents. Future research must be undertaken to investigate the role of nursing home administrators in the provision of oral care for residents.

Public health recommendations

Implementation of a national policy for the provision of oral care for residents in long-term care settings, standardization of procedures coupled with an effective auditing system for compliance is indicated. In addition, nursing home authorities should be able to recruit and retain more caregivers through collaborative efforts with nursing training schools within the community to eliminate the problem of staffing shortages. We suggested that the oral care component of the curriculum of the CNA programs should be upgraded and enhanced in addition to being instructed by dental professionals. Lastly, nursing homes should consider appointing a dental champion who can coordinate continuing education and provision of oral hygiene and care for residents, especially those without dental insurance.

Data availability

The data that supports the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Ortman JM, Velkoff VA, Hogan H. (2014, May 1). An Aging Nation: The Older Population in the United States . Retrieved from United States Census Bureau: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2014/demo/p25-1140 .

El-Solh AA. Association between pneumonia and oral care in nursing home residents. Lung. 2011;189(173). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00408-011-9297-0 .

The University of North Texas. San Antonio Services Strategic Plan. San Antonio: Department of Human Services; 2019.

Google Scholar  

Sumi Y, Nagaosa S, Michiwaki Y, Nagaya M. Attitudes to oral care among caregivers in Japanese nursing homes. Gerodontology. 2008;18(1):2–6. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2358.2001.00002.x .

Article   Google Scholar  

Chebib N, Waldburger TC, Boire S, Prendi V, Maniewwicz S, Phillipe M, Muller F. Oral care knowledge, attitude, and practice: Caregiver’s survey and observation. Gerodontology. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/ger.12502 .

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Porter J, Ntouvia A, Read A, Murdoch M, Ola D, Tsakos G. The impact of oral health on the quality of life of nursing home residents. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2015;13(102). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12955-015-0300-y .

Huang ST, Chiou CC, Liu HY. 2017. Risk factors of aspiration pneumonia related to improper oral hygiene behavior in community dysphagia persons with nasogastric tube feeding. Journal of Dental Science. 2017; 12(4), 375–381, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jds.2017.06.001 .

Khanagar S, Kumar A, Rajanna V, Badiyani BK, Jathanna VR, Kini PV. Oral health care education and its effect on caregivers’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices: a randomized controlled trial. J Int Soc Prev Community Dentistry. 2014;4(2):122–8. https://doi.org/10.4103/2231-0762.139843 .

Amsalu ET, Messele TA, Adane M. Exploring the effect of professional experience on knowledge towards geriatric care among nurses working in adult care units. BMC Geriatric. 2021;21:227. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02156-3 .

Hughes RG. Patient safety and quality: an evidence-based handbook for nurses. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2008.

Arani MM, Aazami S, Azami M, Borji M. Assessing attitudes toward elderly among nurses working in the city of Ilam. Int J Nurs Sci. 2017;4(3):311–3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2017.06.009 .

Liu HY, Chen JR, Hsiao SY, Huang ST. Caregivers’ oral health knowledge, attitude, and behavior toward their children with disabilities. J Dent Sci. 2017;12(4):388–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jds.2017.05.003 .

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Goh CE, Guay MP, Lim MY. Correlates attitudes and perceived behavioral control towards oral care provision among trained and untrained nursing home caregivers in Singapore. Journal of Clinical Nursing.2016; (11–12):1624–1633. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.13162 . PMID: 27118105.

Makarem A, Neshmati- Nabavi F, Afshar L, Yazdani S, Pouresmail Z, Hoseinpour Z. The comparison of professional confidence in nursing students and clinical nurses: a cross-sectional study. Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res. 2019;24(4):261–7. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijnmr.IJNMR_102_17 .

Shah AH, Naseem M, Khan MS, Asiri FY, Alqami I, Gulzar S, Nagarajappa R. Oral health knowledge and attitude among caregivers of special needs patients at a Comprehensive Rehabilitation Centre: an analytical study. J Odontostomatoligic Sci. 2017;8(3):110–6. https://doi.org/10.11138/ads/2017.8.3.110 .

Wardh I, Jonsson M, Wikström M. Attitudes to and knowledge about oral health care among nursing home personnel– an area in need of improvement. Gerodontology. 2012;29(2):e787. e7.

Digra R, Gupta N, Arora V, Gupta P. Oral health knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) among prison inmates of Ambala District, Haryana (India. Dent Oral Craniofac Res. 2015;1(4):101–4. https://doi.org/10.15761/DOCR.1000124 .

Haresaku S, Makino M, Sugiyama S, Naito T, Marino RJ. Comparison of practices, knowledge, confidence, and attitude toward oral cancer among oral health professionals between Japan and Australia. Journal of Cancer Education.2018; 33, 429–435 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-016-1086-2 .

Marneedi PN, Sooraparaju SG, Yennavaram VK, Mounika G, Rao TSS. Knowledge, behavior, and attitude towards oral health among population visiting a Dental college and hospital in South India, a cross-sectional study. Int J Sci Healthc Res. 2020;5(3):230–4.

Gopalakrishnan A, Kahu E, Jones L, Brunton JP. Access and barriers to oral health care for dependent elderly people living in rest homes. Gerodontology. 2019;36(2):149–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/ger.12392 .

Haumschild MS, Haumschild RJ. The importance of oral health in long-term care. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2009;10(9):667–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2009.01.002 .

Alpert PT. Oral health: the oral-systemic health connection. Sage Journals. 2016;29(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1084822316651658 .

Hearn L, Slack-Smith L. Oral health care in residential aged care services: barriers to engaging health-care providers. Australian J Prim Care. 2015;21(2):148–56. https://doi.org/10.1071/PY14029 .

Weening-Verbree L, van Huisman-de Waal L, van Achterberg TL, Schoonhoven L. Oral health care in older people in long term care facilities: A systematic review of implementation strategies. Int J Nurs Stud. 2013; 50 (4) (2013), pp. 569–582, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2012.12.004 .

Willumsen T, Karlsen L, Næss R, Bjørntvedt S. Are the barriers to good oral hygiene in nursing homes within the nurses or the patients? Gerodontology. 2011;29(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2358.2011.00554.x .

McKelvey VA, Thomson WM, Ayers KM. A qualitative study of oral health knowledge and attitudes among staff caring for older people in Dunedin long-term care facilities. NZ Dent J. 2003;99:98–103.

Forsell M, Sjogren P, Kullberg E, Johansson O, Wedel P, Herbst B, Hoogstraate J. Attitudes, and perceptions towards oral hygiene tasks among geriatric nursing home staff. Int J Dental Hygiene. 2011;199–203. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1601-5037.2010.00477.x .

Coleman P. Improving oral health care for the frail elderly: a review of widespread problems and best practices. Geriatr Nurs. 2002;23(4):189–98. https://doi.org/10.1067/mgn.2002.126964 .

Maeda K, Akagi J. Oral care may reduce pneumonia in the tube-fed Elderly: a preliminary study. Dysphagia. 2014;29:616–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00455-014-9553-6 .

Minihanet PM, Morgan JP, Park A, Yantsides KE, Nobles CJ, Finkelman MD, Stark PC, Must A. At-home oral care for adults with developmental disabilities: a survey of caregivers. J Am Dent Association. 2014;145(10):1018–25. https://doi.org/10.14219/jada.2014.64 .

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the participating nursing homes and staff who contributed their time and effort to this work. We also appreciate the support from co-resident Girish Shelke.

This program is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling USD 3.25 million with 0% financed with nongovernmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS, or the US Government.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Dentistry, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, 78229, San Antonio, TX, USA

Joseph Dumbuya, Rochisha S. Marwaha & Suman Challa

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, 78229, San Antonio, TX, USA

Pankil K. Shah

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

The conception of and design of the study, J.D., R.S.M., and P.S., Software, MAQXDA, J.D., Validation, S.C., P.S., and R.S.M., Data collection, J.D., Data analysis and interpretation, J.D. and P.S., Writing- original draft preparation, J.D.; Writing -review and editing, J.D., R.S.M., and S.C., Supervision, S.C., and R.S.M.; All authors reviewed the manuscript and agreed to its publication.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joseph Dumbuya .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

This research was deemed exempt (protocol number: 20210714NRR) by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. All methods were performed by the relevant guidelines and regulations and informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Dumbuya, J., Marwaha, R.S., Shah, P.K. et al. To assess the knowledge, attitudes, and confidence of caregivers and administrators towards the oral health of nursing home residents in San Antonio, Texas. BMC Geriatr 24 , 511 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-024-04784-x

Download citation

Received : 20 March 2023

Accepted : 05 February 2024

Published : 12 June 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-024-04784-x

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Nursing home residents
• Older adults
• Oral Health Care

BMC Geriatrics

ISSN: 1471-2318

• Submission enquiries: [email protected]
• General enquiries: [email protected]