Systematic review and metaanalysis - Thesis Example

Uman (2011) further goes on to appreciate the fact that systematic review and meta-analysis have the same stages and outlines the eight steps that are similar in nature when employing the two methods in reviewing any given studies. Uman (2011) concurs with O’Rourke (2007) that the distinction between the two terms is ambiguous in a way. However, both point the description and definition of the two terms based on the historical background upon which they were founded. They go on to acknowledge the similarity in the steps as well as the fact that meta-analysis is a step in systematic review.

It is critical for scholars to understand the historical, premises, and pitfalls of systematic reviews and meta-analysis in addition to the methods of conducting meta-analysis. O’Rourke (2007) traces systematic reviews and meta-analysis back to the 17th Century when a French Mathematician named Blaise Pascal came up with methods of dealing with the games of chances that were involved in gambling. He further asserts that this was the time when the quantitative approaches were applied in the field of science acknowledging the various observations that started to emerge.

As he points out, the mathematical approaches now allowed the astronomers to compare and merge various observations. O’Rourke (2007) goes on to point the contributions of Laplace and Gauss in the development of the systematic reviews and meta-analysis. This could then be the turning point in the 20th Century when statisticians merged the idea in addressing the questions of similar caliber that arose from clinical results. He appreciates the role played by British statistician Karl Pearson who was able to combine various observations from different clinical trials.

Pearson did this by regrouping study observations into larger groups while considering the small groups too (ORourke, 2007). Additionally, the author states that the reasoning Pearson had was not very clear