Review Typology: The Basic Types of Reviews for Synthesizing Evidence for the Purpose of Knowledge Translation

With advances in medical practice and fields of research, reviews occupy a key position for summarizing existing knowledge. Due to the differences and overlap in terminology, the full potential for reviews may be lost due to confusion of indistinct approaches. The main objective of this study was to provide a descriptive outline of each of the common review types with their characteristics and examples in a health care system. Ascoping search was conducted using the keywords associated with the literature review typology. The SALSA(Search, Appraisal, Synthesis and Analysis) analytical framework was used to identify and distinguish each type of review. Nine common types of reviews and associated methodologies were evaluated against the already established SALSA framework. Their description, strengths and weaknesses are presented. The results provided a basic idea of different types of reviews based on the intended level of knowledge synthesis by which researchers can identify the appropriate type of review based on their intended audience.