There has been an explosion in the number of systematic reviews conducted and published over the past few years. However, a systematic review is an inappropriate or unnecessary research methodology for answering many research questions. Systematic reviews can be inappropriate for a variety of reasons, including:
- The topic is too new, and there aren't relevant published papers to synthesize and analyze for a systematic review
- Many other people have already published systematic reviews on the topic (do a scoping search on the Cochrane Library or limit your search results to systematic reviews on other databases to see if other systematic reviews exist)
- You do not have enough time to conduct a systematic review (most systematic reviews will take between six and eighteen months on average to complete)
- You do not have any coauthors with whom to conduct the systematic review (systematic review methodology requires two authors to screen references to determine which fit pre-defined inclusion criteria independently)
If your circumstances or research topic match the above, a systematic review may not be your best approach. You could still do a literature review and adopt elements of systematic methodology rather than a systematic review.
