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Need help with writing systematic review on mask permeability when alcohol is used to

disinfect it. This is for my dissertation and I have never done anything like this. My supervisor doesnt want to take the risk of using bacteria which was my pervious idea. I am really upset about this and angry. I got a first when we did a rough version last year now I am left confused and stuck. What do I need to do in my systematic review (barely understand what is it). Can you attach some studies (cant find much online). When doing the findings etc can I just write down the findings in words (As each of the findings for each study will be written in numbers etc )

Any help is appreciated
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Original post by shireen1212
disinfect it. This is for my dissertation and I have never done anything like this. My supervisor doesnt want to take the risk of using bacteria which was my pervious idea. I am really upset about this and angry. I got a first when we did a rough version last year now I am left confused and stuck. What do I need to do in my systematic review (barely understand what is it). Can you attach some studies (cant find much online). When doing the findings etc can I just write down the findings in words (As each of the findings for each study will be written in numbers etc )

Any help is appreciated

So am I right in saying that your plan was to do a wet/laboratory project for your dissertation but you are now doing a systematic review?

A systematic review means that you should search for all of the evidence pertaining to your research question. I would recommend using OVID Medline, EMBASE, to search the literature. The first thing you need to do is to formulate your question using the PICO framework (population, intervention, comparator, outcome). Once you have your question, you then need to decide on your inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting studies to be included in your review. Then you need to search for as many studies related to your question as possible to minimise bias. For a good systematic review, this means searching for non-English papers, unpublished papers, etc. Once you have identified all of the papers, you need to critically appraise the quality of the studies. You can do this using a tool such as the CASP tool. When critically appraising the studies, you need to look at the methodology and assess the risk of bias (e.g. selection bias, allocation concealment, attrition bias, etc.). Once you have assessed the quality, only then can you start to see what the results show. Many systematic reviews include a meta-analysis; this is where different studies are weighted (i.e. more weight given to studies with larger sample sizes) and pooled together to give an estimate of the overall effect of the intervention. I wouldn't suggest just writing down the findings in words, you will want to include the numerical results, including P-values/confidence intervals.

This is a very basic overview of a systematic review.
Original post by Jpw1097
So am I right in saying that your plan was to do a wet/laboratory project for your dissertation but you are now doing a systematic review?

A systematic review means that you should search for all of the evidence pertaining to your research question. I would recommend using OVID Medline, EMBASE, to search the literature. The first thing you need to do is to formulate your question using the PICO framework (population, intervention, comparator, outcome). Once you have your question, you then need to decide on your inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting studies to be included in your review. Then you need to search for as many studies related to your question as possible to minimise bias. For a good systematic review, this means searching for non-English papers, unpublished papers, etc. Once you have identified all of the papers, you need to critically appraise the quality of the studies. You can do this using a tool such as the CASP tool. When critically appraising the studies, you need to look at the methodology and assess the risk of bias (e.g. selection bias, allocation concealment, attrition bias, etc.). Once you have assessed the quality, only then can you start to see what the results show. Many systematic reviews include a meta-analysis; this is where different studies are weighted (i.e. more weight given to studies with larger sample sizes) and pooled together to give an estimate of the overall effect of the intervention. I wouldn't suggest just writing down the findings in words, you will want to include the numerical results, including P-values/confidence intervals.

This is a very basic overview of a systematic review.

Thank you so much very helpful

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