Systematic review for informed consent - Essay Example

2.2.2 Limitation of systematic reviews There have been noticeable improvements and beneficial effects by systematic reviews in terms of minimizing biasness and errors in studies, which in turn has resulted in increased reliability of the results and outcomes; however there are still limitations that surround this method. The procedure requires certain qualifications which should be under scrutiny. Petticrew & Roberts (2006) illustrated that there is a possibility for professionals and expert researchers to make errors, regardless of their magnitude, which may affect the results on a certain study.

Based on these factors every systemic review research is prone criticism, in addition, the same principle applies to primary research. Apart from the possibility of making unintentional errors, researchers conducting systemic reviews may make mistakes which are largely influenced by the publication aspirations. This is referred to as publication bias, and often involves the alteration or misguided opinion on results by researchers as they attempt to attain positive results for their work to be published (Petticrew & Roberts, 2006).

Researchers also have the professional obligation to constantly update their knowledge as there are constantly new developments in science and certain information may be out of date. Therefore, recommendation by the Cochrane Collaboration state that reviews should be updated every two years and if an update is not conducted there should an explanation why updating was not carried out. According to Higgins and Greens (2009), the Cochrane Collaboration body states that researchers should search the literature for related subjects twice a year.

Reviews are very strenuous and require a large amount of time and commitment hence there are also financial costs that must be considered. (Hopewell et al., 2007) as well as other resources have indicated that the financial costs include staffing and time allocation. The nature or type of study is also at the researcher’s discretion; these are mainly determined by the researcher’s personal beliefs or theories.