RESEARCH GUIDES

Evidence Synthesis in the Social Sciences

This guide will give you an overview of evidence synthesis methodology and discuss relevant resources and tools.

Umbrella Reviews

In short, an umbrella review is a review of evidence synthesis reviews. These can only be conducted when there has already been sufficient reviews done in the relevant field of research. The advantage of this type of review is that it can be used to quickly assess a large range of research and compare the findings of existing reviews.

Umbrella reviews are considered the highest level of evidence synthesis.

chart showing hierarchy of evidence synthesis methods with umbrella review at the top

Fusar-Poli P, Radua J. Ten simple rules for conducting umbrella reviews. Evidence-Based Mental Health 2018;21:95-100.

Further Reading

Umbrella Reviews by Giuseppe Biondi-Zoccai (Editor)
ISBN: 3319256556
Publication Date: 2016-02-28
This book is an ideal guide to umbrella reviews, overviews of reviews, and meta-epidemiologic studies for evidence synthesis. This book focuses on these reviews, which permit a comprehensive and powerful synthesis of scientific evidence in medicine as well as in many other fields in order to inform decision-making. All aspects are covered, including review design and registration, the searching, abstracting, appraisal, and synthesis of evidence, the appraisal of moderators and confounders, and state of the art reporting.

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