example of a health literature review

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• Citing Sources
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• What are Literature Reviews?
• Conducting & Reporting Systematic Reviews
• Finding Systematic Reviews
• Tutorials & Tools for Literature Reviews
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What are Systematic Reviews? (3 minutes, 24 second YouTube Video)

Systematic Literature Reviews: Steps & Resources

These steps for conducting a systematic literature review are listed below . 

Also see subpages for more information about:

• The different types of literature reviews, including systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis methods
• Tools & Tutorials

Literature Review & Systematic Review Steps

• Develop a Focused Question
• Scope the Literature  (Initial Search)
• Refine & Expand the Search
• Limit the Results
• Download Citations
• Abstract & Analyze
• Create Flow Diagram
• Synthesize & Report Results

1. Develop a Focused   Question 

Consider the PICO Format: Population/Problem, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome

Focus on defining the Population or Problem and Intervention (don't narrow by Comparison or Outcome just yet!)

"What are the effects of the Pilates method for patients with low back pain?"

Tools & Additional Resources:

• PICO Question Help
• Stillwell, Susan B., DNP, RN, CNE; Fineout-Overholt, Ellen, PhD, RN, FNAP, FAAN; Melnyk, Bernadette Mazurek, PhD, RN, CPNP/PMHNP, FNAP, FAAN; Williamson, Kathleen M., PhD, RN Evidence-Based Practice, Step by Step: Asking the Clinical Question, AJN The American Journal of Nursing : March 2010 - Volume 110 - Issue 3 - p 58-61 doi: 10.1097/01.NAJ.0000368959.11129.79

2. Scope the Literature

A "scoping search" investigates the breadth and/or depth of the initial question or may identify a gap in the literature. 

Eligible studies may be located by searching in:

• Background sources (books, point-of-care tools)
• Article databases
• Trial registries
• Grey literature
• Cited references
• Reference lists

When searching, if possible, translate terms to controlled vocabulary of the database. Use text word searching when necessary.

Use Boolean operators to connect search terms:

• Combine separate concepts with AND  (resulting in a narrower search)
• Connecting synonyms with OR  (resulting in an expanded search)

Search:  pilates AND ("low back pain"  OR  backache )

Video Tutorials - Translating PICO Questions into Search Queries

• Translate Your PICO Into a Search in PubMed (YouTube, Carrie Price, 5:11) 
• Translate Your PICO Into a Search in CINAHL (YouTube, Carrie Price, 4:56)

3. Refine & Expand Your Search

Expand your search strategy with synonymous search terms harvested from:

• database thesauri
• reference lists
• relevant studies

Example: 

(pilates OR exercise movement techniques) AND ("low back pain" OR backache* OR sciatica OR lumbago OR spondylosis)

As you develop a final, reproducible strategy for each database, save your strategies in a:

• a personal database account (e.g., MyNCBI for PubMed)
• Log in with your NYU credentials
• Open and "Make a Copy" to create your own tracker for your literature search strategies

4. Limit Your Results

Use database filters to limit your results based on your defined inclusion/exclusion criteria.  In addition to relying on the databases' categorical filters, you may also need to manually screen results.  

• Limit to Article type, e.g.,:  "randomized controlled trial" OR multicenter study
• Limit by publication years, age groups, language, etc.

NOTE: Many databases allow you to filter to "Full Text Only".  This filter is  not recommended . It excludes articles if their full text is not available in that particular database (CINAHL, PubMed, etc), but if the article is relevant, it is important that you are able to read its title and abstract, regardless of 'full text' status. The full text is likely to be accessible through another source (a different database, or Interlibrary Loan).  

• Filters in PubMed
• CINAHL Advanced Searching Tutorial

5. Download Citations

Selected citations and/or entire sets of search results can be downloaded from the database into a citation management tool. If you are conducting a systematic review that will require reporting according to PRISMA standards, a citation manager can help you keep track of the number of articles that came from each database, as well as the number of duplicate records.

In Zotero, you can create a Collection for the combined results set, and sub-collections for the results from each database you search.  You can then use Zotero's 'Duplicate Items" function to find and merge duplicate records.

• Citation Managers - General Guide

6. Abstract and Analyze

• Migrate citations to data collection/extraction tool
• Screen Title/Abstracts for inclusion/exclusion
• Screen and appraise full text for relevance, methods, 
• Resolve disagreements by consensus

Covidence is a web-based tool that enables you to work with a team to screen titles/abstracts and full text for inclusion in your review, as well as extract data from the included studies.

• Covidence Support
• Critical Appraisal Tools
• Data Extraction Tools

7. Create Flow Diagram

The PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) flow diagram is a visual representation of the flow of records through different phases of a systematic review.  It depicts the number of records identified, included and excluded.  It is best used in conjunction with the PRISMA checklist .

Example from: Stotz, S. A., McNealy, K., Begay, R. L., DeSanto, K., Manson, S. M., & Moore, K. R. (2021). Multi-level diabetes prevention and treatment interventions for Native people in the USA and Canada: A scoping review. Current Diabetes Reports, 2 (11), 46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11892-021-01414-3

• PRISMA Flow Diagram Generator (ShinyApp.io, Haddaway et al. )
• PRISMA Diagram Templates  (Word and PDF)
• Make a copy of the file to fill out the template
• Image can be downloaded as PDF, PNG, JPG, or SVG
• Covidence generates a PRISMA diagram that is automatically updated as records move through the review phases

8. Synthesize & Report Results

There are a number of reporting guideline available to guide the synthesis and reporting of results in systematic literature reviews.

It is common to organize findings in a matrix, also known as a Table of Evidence (ToE).

• Reporting Guidelines for Systematic Reviews
• Download a sample template of a health sciences review matrix  (GoogleSheets)

Steps modified from: 

Cook, D. A., & West, C. P. (2012). Conducting systematic reviews in medical education: a stepwise approach.   Medical Education , 46 (10), 943–952.

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• Last Updated: Jun 26, 2024 3:00 PM
• URL: https://guides.nyu.edu/health

15 Literature Review Examples

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Learn about our Editorial Process

Literature reviews are a necessary step in a research process and often required when writing your research proposal . They involve gathering, analyzing, and evaluating existing knowledge about a topic in order to find gaps in the literature where future studies will be needed.

Ideally, once you have completed your literature review, you will be able to identify how your research project can build upon and extend existing knowledge in your area of study.

Generally, for my undergraduate research students, I recommend a narrative review, where themes can be generated in order for the students to develop sufficient understanding of the topic so they can build upon the themes using unique methods or novel research questions.

If you’re in the process of writing a literature review, I have developed a literature review template for you to use – it’s a huge time-saver and walks you through how to write a literature review step-by-step:

Get your time-saving templates here to write your own literature review.

Literature Review Examples

For the following types of literature review, I present an explanation and overview of the type, followed by links to some real-life literature reviews on the topics.

1. Narrative Review Examples

Also known as a traditional literature review, the narrative review provides a broad overview of the studies done on a particular topic.

It often includes both qualitative and quantitative studies and may cover a wide range of years.

The narrative review’s purpose is to identify commonalities, gaps, and contradictions in the literature .

I recommend to my students that they should gather their studies together, take notes on each study, then try to group them by themes that form the basis for the review (see my step-by-step instructions at the end of the article).

Example Study

Title: Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations

Citation: Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E., … & Vogelaers, D. (2015). Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations. International journal of clinical practice , 69 (11), 1257-1267.

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ijcp.12686  

Overview: This narrative review analyzed themes emerging from 69 articles about communication in healthcare contexts. Five key themes were found in the literature: poor communication can lead to various negative outcomes, discontinuity of care, compromise of patient safety, patient dissatisfaction, and inefficient use of resources. After presenting the key themes, the authors recommend that practitioners need to approach healthcare communication in a more structured way, such as by ensuring there is a clear understanding of who is in charge of ensuring effective communication in clinical settings.

Other Examples

• Burnout in United States Healthcare Professionals: A Narrative Review (Reith, 2018) – read here
• Examining the Presence, Consequences, and Reduction of Implicit Bias in Health Care: A Narrative Review (Zestcott, Blair & Stone, 2016) – read here
• A Narrative Review of School-Based Physical Activity for Enhancing Cognition and Learning (Mavilidi et al., 2018) – read here
• A narrative review on burnout experienced by medical students and residents (Dyrbye & Shanafelt, 2015) – read here

2. Systematic Review Examples

This type of literature review is more structured and rigorous than a narrative review. It involves a detailed and comprehensive plan and search strategy derived from a set of specified research questions.

The key way you’d know a systematic review compared to a narrative review is in the methodology: the systematic review will likely have a very clear criteria for how the studies were collected, and clear explanations of exclusion/inclusion criteria. 

The goal is to gather the maximum amount of valid literature on the topic, filter out invalid or low-quality reviews, and minimize bias. Ideally, this will provide more reliable findings, leading to higher-quality conclusions and recommendations for further research.

You may note from the examples below that the ‘method’ sections in systematic reviews tend to be much more explicit, often noting rigid inclusion/exclusion criteria and exact keywords used in searches.

Title: The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review  

Citation: Roman, S., Sánchez-Siles, L. M., & Siegrist, M. (2017). The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review. Trends in food science & technology , 67 , 44-57.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092422441730122X  

Overview: This systematic review included 72 studies of food naturalness to explore trends in the literature about its importance for consumers. Keywords used in the data search included: food, naturalness, natural content, and natural ingredients. Studies were included if they examined consumers’ preference for food naturalness and contained empirical data. The authors found that the literature lacks clarity about how naturalness is defined and measured, but also found that food consumption is significantly influenced by perceived naturalness of goods.

• A systematic review of research on online teaching and learning from 2009 to 2018 (Martin, Sun & Westine, 2020) – read here
• Where Is Current Research on Blockchain Technology? (Yli-Huumo et al., 2016) – read here
• Universities—industry collaboration: A systematic review (Ankrah & Al-Tabbaa, 2015) – read here
• Internet of Things Applications: A Systematic Review (Asghari, Rahmani & Javadi, 2019) – read here

3. Meta-analysis

This is a type of systematic review that uses statistical methods to combine and summarize the results of several studies.

Due to its robust methodology, a meta-analysis is often considered the ‘gold standard’ of secondary research , as it provides a more precise estimate of a treatment effect than any individual study contributing to the pooled analysis.

Furthermore, by aggregating data from a range of studies, a meta-analysis can identify patterns, disagreements, or other interesting relationships that may have been hidden in individual studies.

This helps to enhance the generalizability of findings, making the conclusions drawn from a meta-analysis particularly powerful and informative for policy and practice.

Title: Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s Disease Risk: A Meta-Meta-Analysis

Citation: Sáiz-Vazquez, O., Puente-Martínez, A., Ubillos-Landa, S., Pacheco-Bonrostro, J., & Santabárbara, J. (2020). Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease risk: a meta-meta-analysis. Brain sciences, 10(6), 386.

Source: https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10060386  

O verview: This study examines the relationship between cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Researchers conducted a systematic search of meta-analyses and reviewed several databases, collecting 100 primary studies and five meta-analyses to analyze the connection between cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease. They find that the literature compellingly demonstrates that low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels significantly influence the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

• The power of feedback revisited: A meta-analysis of educational feedback research (Wisniewski, Zierer & Hattie, 2020) – read here
• How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis (Ritchie & Tucker-Drob, 2018) – read here
• A meta-analysis of factors related to recycling (Geiger et al., 2019) – read here
• Stress management interventions for police officers and recruits (Patterson, Chung & Swan, 2014) – read here

Other Types of Reviews

• Scoping Review: This type of review is used to map the key concepts underpinning a research area and the main sources and types of evidence available. It can be undertaken as stand-alone projects in their own right, or as a precursor to a systematic review.
• Rapid Review: This type of review accelerates the systematic review process in order to produce information in a timely manner. This is achieved by simplifying or omitting stages of the systematic review process.
• Integrative Review: This review method is more inclusive than others, allowing for the simultaneous inclusion of experimental and non-experimental research. The goal is to more comprehensively understand a particular phenomenon.
• Critical Review: This is similar to a narrative review but requires a robust understanding of both the subject and the existing literature. In a critical review, the reviewer not only summarizes the existing literature, but also evaluates its strengths and weaknesses. This is common in the social sciences and humanities .
• State-of-the-Art Review: This considers the current level of advancement in a field or topic and makes recommendations for future research directions. This type of review is common in technological and scientific fields but can be applied to any discipline.

How to Write a Narrative Review (Tips for Undergrad Students)

Most undergraduate students conducting a capstone research project will be writing narrative reviews. Below is a five-step process for conducting a simple review of the literature for your project.

• Search for Relevant Literature: Use scholarly databases related to your field of study, provided by your university library, along with appropriate search terms to identify key scholarly articles that have been published on your topic.
• Evaluate and Select Sources: Filter the source list by selecting studies that are directly relevant and of sufficient quality, considering factors like credibility , objectivity, accuracy, and validity.
• Analyze and Synthesize: Review each source and summarize the main arguments  in one paragraph (or more, for postgrad). Keep these summaries in a table.
• Identify Themes: With all studies summarized, group studies that share common themes, such as studies that have similar findings or methodologies.
• Write the Review: Write your review based upon the themes or subtopics you have identified. Give a thorough overview of each theme, integrating source data, and conclude with a summary of the current state of knowledge then suggestions for future research based upon your evaluation of what is lacking in the literature.

Literature reviews don’t have to be as scary as they seem. Yes, they are difficult and require a strong degree of comprehension of academic studies. But it can be feasibly done through following a structured approach to data collection and analysis. With my undergraduate research students (who tend to conduct small-scale qualitative studies ), I encourage them to conduct a narrative literature review whereby they can identify key themes in the literature. Within each theme, students can critique key studies and their strengths and limitations , in order to get a lay of the land and come to a point where they can identify ways to contribute new insights to the existing academic conversation on their topic.

Ankrah, S., & Omar, A. T. (2015). Universities–industry collaboration: A systematic review. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31(3), 387-408.

Asghari, P., Rahmani, A. M., & Javadi, H. H. S. (2019). Internet of Things applications: A systematic review. Computer Networks , 148 , 241-261.

Dyrbye, L., & Shanafelt, T. (2016). A narrative review on burnout experienced by medical students and residents. Medical education , 50 (1), 132-149.

Geiger, J. L., Steg, L., Van Der Werff, E., & Ünal, A. B. (2019). A meta-analysis of factors related to recycling. Journal of environmental psychology , 64 , 78-97.

Martin, F., Sun, T., & Westine, C. D. (2020). A systematic review of research on online teaching and learning from 2009 to 2018. Computers & education , 159 , 104009.

Mavilidi, M. F., Ruiter, M., Schmidt, M., Okely, A. D., Loyens, S., Chandler, P., & Paas, F. (2018). A narrative review of school-based physical activity for enhancing cognition and learning: The importance of relevancy and integration. Frontiers in psychology , 2079.

Patterson, G. T., Chung, I. W., & Swan, P. W. (2014). Stress management interventions for police officers and recruits: A meta-analysis. Journal of experimental criminology , 10 , 487-513.

Reith, T. P. (2018). Burnout in United States healthcare professionals: a narrative review. Cureus , 10 (12).

Ritchie, S. J., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2018). How much does education improve intelligence? A meta-analysis. Psychological science , 29 (8), 1358-1369.

Roman, S., Sánchez-Siles, L. M., & Siegrist, M. (2017). The importance of food naturalness for consumers: Results of a systematic review. Trends in food science & technology , 67 , 44-57.

Sáiz-Vazquez, O., Puente-Martínez, A., Ubillos-Landa, S., Pacheco-Bonrostro, J., & Santabárbara, J. (2020). Cholesterol and Alzheimer’s disease risk: a meta-meta-analysis. Brain sciences, 10(6), 386.

Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E., … & Vogelaers, D. (2015). Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations. International journal of clinical practice , 69 (11), 1257-1267.

Wisniewski, B., Zierer, K., & Hattie, J. (2020). The power of feedback revisited: A meta-analysis of educational feedback research. Frontiers in Psychology , 10 , 3087.

Yli-Huumo, J., Ko, D., Choi, S., Park, S., & Smolander, K. (2016). Where is current research on blockchain technology?—a systematic review. PloS one , 11 (10), e0163477.

Zestcott, C. A., Blair, I. V., & Stone, J. (2016). Examining the presence, consequences, and reduction of implicit bias in health care: a narrative review. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations , 19 (4), 528-542

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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See an example

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Literature Review Overview

What is a Literature Review? Why Are They Important?

A literature review is important because it presents the "state of the science" or accumulated knowledge on a specific topic. It summarizes, analyzes, and compares the available research, reporting study strengths and weaknesses, results, gaps in the research, conclusions, and authors’ interpretations.

Tips and techniques for conducting a literature review are described more fully in the subsequent boxes:

• Literature review steps
• Strategies for organizing the information for your review
• Literature reviews sections
• In-depth resources to assist in writing a literature review
• Templates to start your review
• Literature review examples

Literature Review Steps

Graphic used with permission: Torres, E. Librarian, Hawai'i Pacific University

1. Choose a topic and define your research question

• Try to choose a topic of interest. You will be working with this subject for several weeks to months.
• Ideas for topics can be found by scanning medical news sources (e.g MedPage Today), journals / magazines, work experiences, interesting patient cases, or family or personal health issues.
• Do a bit of background reading on topic ideas to familiarize yourself with terminology and issues. Note the words and terms that are used.
• Develop a focused research question using PICO(T) or other framework (FINER, SPICE, etc - there are many options) to help guide you.
• Run a few sample database searches to make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.
• If possible, discuss your topic with your professor. 

2. Determine the scope of your review

The scope of your review will be determined by your professor during your program. Check your assignment requirements for parameters for the Literature Review.

• How many studies will you need to include?
• How many years should it cover? (usually 5-7 depending on the professor)
• For the nurses, are you required to limit to nursing literature?

3. Develop a search plan

• Determine which databases to search. This will depend on your topic. If you are not sure, check your program specific library website (Physician Asst / Nursing / Health Services Admin) for recommendations.
• Create an initial search string using the main concepts from your research (PICO, etc) question. Include synonyms and related words connected by Boolean operators
• Contact your librarian for assistance, if needed.

4. Conduct searches and find relevant literature

• Keep notes as you search - tracking keywords and search strings used in each database in order to avoid wasting time duplicating a search that has already been tried
• Read abstracts and write down new terms to search as you find them
• Check MeSH or other subject headings listed in relevant articles for additional search terms
• Scan author provided keywords if available
• Check the references of relevant articles looking for other useful articles (ancestry searching)
• Check articles that have cited your relevant article for more useful articles (descendancy searching). Both PubMed and CINAHL offer Cited By links
• Revise the search to broaden or narrow your topic focus as you peruse the available literature
• Conducting a literature search is a repetitive process. Searches can be revised and re-run multiple times during the process.
• Track the citations for your relevant articles in a software citation manager such as RefWorks, Zotero, or Mendeley

5. Review the literature

• Read the full articles. Do not rely solely on the abstracts. Authors frequently cannot include all results within the confines of an abstract. Exclude articles that do not address your research question.
• While reading, note research findings relevant to your project and summarize. Are the findings conflicting? There are matrices available than can help with organization. See the Organizing Information box below.
• Critique / evaluate the quality of the articles, and record your findings in your matrix or summary table. Tools are available to prompt you what to look for. (See Resources for Appraising a Research Study box on the HSA, Nursing , and PA guides )
• You may need to revise your search and re-run it based on your findings.

6. Organize and synthesize

• Compile the findings and analysis from each resource into a single narrative.
• Using an outline can be helpful. Start broad, addressing the overall findings and then narrow, discussing each resource and how it relates to your question and to the other resources.
• Cite as you write to keep sources organized.
• Write in structured paragraphs using topic sentences and transition words to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.
• Don't present one study after another, but rather relate one study's findings to another. Speak to how the studies are connected and how they relate to your work.

Organizing Information

Options to assist in organizing sources and information :

1. Synthesis Matrix

• helps provide overview of the literature
• information from individual sources is entered into a grid to enable writers to discern patterns and themes
• article summary, analysis, or results
• thoughts, reflections, or issues
• each reference gets its own row
• mind maps, concept maps, flowcharts
• at top of page record PICO or research question
• record major concepts / themes from literature
• list concepts that branch out from major concepts underneath - keep going downward hierarchically, until most specific ideas are recorded
• enclose concepts in circles and connect the concept with lines - add brief explanation as needed

3. Summary Table

• information is recorded in a grid to help with recall and sorting information when writing
• allows comparing and contrasting individual studies easily
• purpose of study
• methodology (study population, data collection tool)

Efron, S. E., & Ravid, R. (2019). Writing the literature review : A practical guide . Guilford Press.

Literature Review Sections

• Lit reviews can be part of a larger paper / research study or they can be the focus of the paper
• Lit reviews focus on research studies to provide evidence
• New topics may not have much that has been published

* The sections included may depend on the purpose of the literature review (standalone paper or section within a research paper)

Standalone Literature Review (aka Narrative Review):

• presents your topic or PICO question
• includes the why of the literature review and your goals for the review.
• provides background for your the topic and previews the key points
• Narrative Reviews: tmay not have an explanation of methods.
• include where the search was conducted (which databases) what subject terms or keywords were used, and any limits or filters that were applied and why - this will help others re-create the search
• describe how studies were analyzed for inclusion or exclusion
• review the purpose and answer the research question
• thematically - using recurring themes in the literature
• chronologically - present the development of the topic over time
• methodological - compare and contrast findings based on various methodologies used to research the topic (e.g. qualitative vs quantitative, etc.)
• theoretical - organized content based on various theories
• provide an overview of the main points of each source then synthesize the findings into a coherent summary of the whole
• present common themes among the studies
• compare and contrast the various study results
• interpret the results and address the implications of the findings
• do the results support the original hypothesis or conflict with it
• provide your own analysis and interpretation (eg. discuss the significance of findings; evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the studies, noting any problems)
• discuss common and unusual patterns and offer explanations
•  stay away from opinions, personal biases and unsupported recommendations
• summarize the key findings and relate them back to your PICO/research question
• note gaps in the research and suggest areas for further research
• this section should not contain "new" information that had not been previously discussed in one of the sections above
• provide a list of all the studies and other sources used in proper APA 7

Literature Review as Part of a Research Study Manuscript:

• Compares the study with other research and includes how a study fills a gap in the research.
• Focus on the body of the review which includes the synthesized Findings and Discussion

Literature Reviews vs Systematic Reviews

Systematic Reviews are NOT the same as a Literature Review:

Literature Reviews:

• Literature reviews may or may not follow strict systematic methods to find, select, and analyze articles, but rather they selectively and broadly review the literature on a topic
• Research included in a Literature Review can be "cherry-picked" and therefore, can be very subjective

Systematic Reviews:

• Systemic reviews are designed to provide a comprehensive summary of the evidence for a focused research question
• rigorous and strictly structured, using standardized reporting guidelines (e.g. PRISMA, see link below)
• uses exhaustive, systematic searches of all relevant databases
• best practice dictates search strategies are peer reviewed
• uses predetermined study inclusion and exclusion criteria in order to minimize bias
• aims to capture and synthesize all literature (including unpublished research - grey literature) that meet the predefined criteria on a focused topic resulting in high quality evidence

Literature Review Examples

• Breastfeeding initiation and support: A literature review of what women value and the impact of early discharge (2017). Women and Birth : Journal of the Australian College of Midwives
• Community-based participatory research to promote healthy diet and nutrition and prevent and control obesity among African-Americans: A literature review (2017). Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities

• Vitamin D deficiency in individuals with a spinal cord injury: A literature review (2017). Spinal Cord

Resources for Writing a Literature Review

These sources have been used in developing this guide.

Resources Used on This Page

Aveyard, H. (2010). Doing a literature review in health and social care : A practical guide . McGraw-Hill Education.

Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). Writing a literature review . Purdue University. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/conducting_research/writing_a_literature_review.html

Torres, E. (2021, October 21). Nursing - graduate studies research guide: Literature review. Hawai'i Pacific University Libraries. Retrieved January 27, 2022, from https://hpu.libguides.com/c.php?g=543891&p=3727230

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How to Conduct a Literature Review (Health Sciences and Beyond)

What is a literature review, traditional (narrative) literature review, integrative literature review, systematic reviews, meta-analysis, scoping review.

• Developing a Research Question
• Selection Criteria
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• Systematic Reviews by Roy Brown Last Updated Oct 17, 2023 725 views this year
• Write a Literature Review by John Glover Last Updated Oct 16, 2023 3610 views this year

A literature review provides an overview of what's been written about a specific topic. There are many different types of literature reviews. They vary in terms of comprehensiveness, types of study included, and purpose. 

The other pages in this guide will cover some basic steps to consider when conducting a traditional health sciences literature review. See below for a quick look at some of the more popular types of literature reviews.

For additional information on a variety of review methods, the following article provides an excellent overview.

Grant MJ, Booth A. A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Info Libr J. 2009 Jun;26(2):91-108. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x. Review. PubMed PMID: 19490148.

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• Volume 19, Issue 1
• Reviewing the literature
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• Joanna Smith 1 ,
• Helen Noble 2
• 1 School of Healthcare, University of Leeds , Leeds , UK
• 2 School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queens's University Belfast , Belfast , UK
• Correspondence to Dr Joanna Smith , School of Healthcare, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK; j.e.smith1{at}leeds.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/eb-2015-102252

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Implementing evidence into practice requires nurses to identify, critically appraise and synthesise research. This may require a comprehensive literature review: this article aims to outline the approaches and stages required and provides a working example of a published review.

Are there different approaches to undertaking a literature review?

What stages are required to undertake a literature review.

The rationale for the review should be established; consider why the review is important and relevant to patient care/safety or service delivery. For example, Noble et al 's 4 review sought to understand and make recommendations for practice and research in relation to dialysis refusal and withdrawal in patients with end-stage renal disease, an area of care previously poorly described. If appropriate, highlight relevant policies and theoretical perspectives that might guide the review. Once the key issues related to the topic, including the challenges encountered in clinical practice, have been identified formulate a clear question, and/or develop an aim and specific objectives. The type of review undertaken is influenced by the purpose of the review and resources available. However, the stages or methods used to undertake a review are similar across approaches and include:

Formulating clear inclusion and exclusion criteria, for example, patient groups, ages, conditions/treatments, sources of evidence/research designs;

Justifying data bases and years searched, and whether strategies including hand searching of journals, conference proceedings and research not indexed in data bases (grey literature) will be undertaken;

Developing search terms, the PICU (P: patient, problem or population; I: intervention; C: comparison; O: outcome) framework is a useful guide when developing search terms;

Developing search skills (eg, understanding Boolean Operators, in particular the use of AND/OR) and knowledge of how data bases index topics (eg, MeSH headings). Working with a librarian experienced in undertaking health searches is invaluable when developing a search.

Once studies are selected, the quality of the research/evidence requires evaluation. Using a quality appraisal tool, such as the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) tools, 5 results in a structured approach to assessing the rigour of studies being reviewed. 3 Approaches to data synthesis for quantitative studies may include a meta-analysis (statistical analysis of data from multiple studies of similar designs that have addressed the same question), or findings can be reported descriptively. 6 Methods applicable for synthesising qualitative studies include meta-ethnography (themes and concepts from different studies are explored and brought together using approaches similar to qualitative data analysis methods), narrative summary, thematic analysis and content analysis. 7 Table 1 outlines the stages undertaken for a published review that summarised research about parents’ experiences of living with a child with a long-term condition. 8

• View inline

An example of rapid evidence assessment review

In summary, the type of literature review depends on the review purpose. For the novice reviewer undertaking a review can be a daunting and complex process; by following the stages outlined and being systematic a robust review is achievable. The importance of literature reviews should not be underestimated—they help summarise and make sense of an increasingly vast body of research promoting best evidence-based practice.

• ↵ Centre for Reviews and Dissemination . Guidance for undertaking reviews in health care . 3rd edn . York : CRD, York University , 2009 .
• ↵ Canadian Best Practices Portal. http://cbpp-pcpe.phac-aspc.gc.ca/interventions/selected-systematic-review-sites / ( accessed 7.8.2015 ).
• Bridges J , et al
• ↵ Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP). http://www.casp-uk.net / ( accessed 7.8.2015 ).
• Dixon-Woods M ,
• Shaw R , et al
• Agarwal S ,
• Jones D , et al
• Cheater F ,

Twitter Follow Joanna Smith at @josmith175

Competing interests None declared.

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38-132/66-132 DC Grand Challenge First-Year Seminar: Health in Unhealthy Times

• Evaluating Information
• Finding Scholarly Resources
• Writing Literature Reviews
• Managing Sources

Social Sciences Librarian

On this page, you will find some guides that will help you to transform the notes you have taken when you were reading your sources. These guides can help you with understanding the purpose of each section and how to address the goals of writing a literature review.

Getting started writing a literature review

• Literature Reviews Handout from SASC CMU's Student Academic Success Center provides this handout on how to construct a literature review including synthesizing ideas across multiple sources. You can also view this short video for a walk-through of the handout.
• Writing a Literature Review This Purdue OWL guide helps you breakdown the sections in writing and organizing a literature review, and offers tips on helping you synthesize your sources instead of just summarizing them.
• Write a Literature Review This UC Santa Cruz Library guide offers guidance and questions to help you get started with your literature review.
• Learn how to write a review of literature The Writing Center at University of Wisconsin – Madison has also put together a short guide that describes the purpose of each section and what it should address.

Student Academic Success Center

CMU's Student Academic Success Center offers communication support to help you effectively communicate your ideas through writing and speaking. This includes personalized tutoring, workshops and resources.

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Searching the public health & medical literature more effectively: literature review help.

• Getting Started
• Articles: Searching PubMed This link opens in a new window
• More Sources: Databases, Systematic Reviews, Grey Literature
• Organize Citations & Search Strategies
• Literature Review Help
• Need More Help?

Writing Guides, Manuals, etc.

Literature Review Tips Handouts

Write about something you are passionate about!

• About Literature Reviews (pdf)
• Literature Review Workflow (pdf)
• Search Tips/Search Operators
• Quick Article Evaluation Worksheet (docx)
• Tips for the Literature Review Workflow
• Sample Outline for a Literature Review (docx)

Ten simple rules for writing a literature review . Pautasso M. PLoS Comput Biol. 2013;9(7):e1003149. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149

Conducting the Literature Search . Chapter 4 of Chasan-Taber L. Writing Dissertation and Grant Proposals: Epidemiology, Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics. New York: Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2014.

A step-by-step guide to writing a research paper, from idea to full manuscript . Excellent and easy to follow blog post by Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega.

Data Extraction

Data extraction answers the question “what do the studies tell us?”

At a minimum, consider the following when extracting data from the studies you are reviewing ( source ):

• Only use the data elements relevant to your question;
• Use a table, form, or tool (such as Covidence ) for data extraction;
• Test your methods and tool for missing data elements, redundancy, consistency, clarity.

Here is a table of data elements to consider for your data extraction. (From University of York, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination).

Critical Reading

As you read articles, write notes. You may wish to create a table, answering these questions:

• What is the hypothesis?
• What is the method? Rigorous? Appropriate sample size? Results support conclusions?
• What are the key findings?
• How does this paper support/contradict other work?
• How does it support/contradict your own approach?
• How significant is this research? What is its special contribution?
• Is this research repeating existing approaches or making a new contribution?
• What are its strengths?
• What are its weaknesses/limitations?

From: Kearns, H. & Finn, J. (2017) Supervising PhD Students: A Practical Guide and Toolkit . AU: Thinkwell, p. 103.

Submitting to a Journal? First Identify Journals That Publish on Your Topic

Through Scopus

• Visit the  Scopus database.
• Search for recent articles on your research topic.
• Above the results, click “Analyze search results."
• Click in the "Documents per year by source" box.
• On the left you will see the results listed by the number of articles published on your research topic per journal.

Through Web of Science

• Visit the Web of Science database.
• In the results, click "Analyze Results" on the right hand side.
• From the drop-down menu near the top left, choose "Publication Titles."
• Change the "Minimum record count (threshold)," if desired.
• Scroll down for a table of results by journal title.
• JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator) Use JANE to help you discover and decide where to publish an article you have authored. Jane matches the abstract of your article to the articles in Medline to find the best matching journals (or authors, or articles).
• Jot (Journal Targeter) Jot uses Jane and other data to determine journals likely to publish your article (based on title, abstract, references) against the impact metric of those journals. From Yale University.
• EndNote Manuscript Matcher Using algorithms and data from the Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports, Manuscript Matcher identifies the most relevant and impactful journals to which one may wish to submit a manuscript. Access Manuscript Matcher via EndNote X9 or EndNote 20.
• DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) Journal Lookup Look up a journal title on DOAJ and find information on publication fees, aims and scope, instructions for authors, submission to publication time, copyright, and more.

Writing Help @UCB

Here is a short list of sources of writing help available to UC Berkeley students, staff, and faculty:

• Purdue OWL Excellent collection of guides on writing, including citing/attribution, citation styles, grammar and punctuation, academic writing, and much more.
• Berkeley Writing: College Writing Programs "Our philosophy includes small class size, careful attention to building your critical reading and thinking skills along with your writing, personalized attention, and a great deal of practice writing and revising." Website has a Writing Resources Database .
• Graduate Writing Center, Berkeley Graduate Division Assists graduate students in the development of academic skills necessary to successfully complete their programs and prepare for future positions. Workshops and online consultations are offered on topics such as academic writing, grant writing, dissertation writing , thesis writing , editing, and preparing articles for publication, in addition to writing groups and individual consultations.
• Nature Masterclass on Scientific Writing and Publishing For Postdocs, Visiting Scholars, and Visiting Student Researchers with active, approved appointments, and current UC Berkeley graduate students who are new to publishing or wish to refresh their skills. Part 1: Writing a Research Paper; Part 2: Publishing a Research Paper; Part 3: Writing and Publishing a Review Paper. Offered by Visiting Researcher Scholar and Postdoc Affairs (VSPA) program; complete this form to gain access.

Alternative Publishing Formats

Here is some information and tips on getting your research to a broader, or to a specialized, audience

• Creating One-Page Reports One-page reports are a great way to provide a snapshot of a project’s activities and impact to stakeholders. Summarizing key facts in a format that is easily and quickly digestible engages the busy reader and can make your project stand out. From EvaluATE .
• How to write an Op-ed (Webinar) Strategies on how to write sharp op-eds for broader consumption, one of the most important ways to ensure your analysis and research is shared in the public sphere. From the Institute for Research on Public Policy .
• 10 tips for commentary writers From UC Berkeley Media Relations’ 2017 Op-Ed writing workshop.
• Journal of Science Policy and Governance JSPG publishes policy memos, op-eds, position papers, and similar items created by students.
• Writing Persuasive Policy Briefs Presentation slides from a UCB Science Policy Group session.
• 3 Essential Steps to Share Research With Popular Audiences (Inside Higher Ed) How to broaden the reach and increase the impact of your academic writing. Popular writing isn’t a distraction from core research!

The Politics of Citation

"One of the feminist practices key to my teaching and research is a feminist practice of citation."

From The Digital Feminist Collective , this blog post emphasizes the power of citing.

"Acknowledging and establishing feminist genealogies is part of the work of producing more just forms of knowledge and intellectual practice."

Here's an exercise (docx) to help you in determining how inclusive you are when citing.

Additional Resources for Inclusive Citation Practices :

• BIPOC Scientists Citation guide (Rockefeller Univ.).
• Conducting Research through an Anti-Racism Lens (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries).
• cleanBib (Code to probabilistically assign gender and race proportions of first/last authors pairs in bibliography entries).
• Balanced Citer (Python script guesses the race and gender of the first and last authors for papers in your citation list and compares your list to expected distributions based on a model that accounts for paper characteristics).
• Read Black women's work;
• Integrate Black women into the CORE of your syllabus (in life & in the classroom);
• Acknowledge Black women's intellectual production;
• Make space for Black women to speak;
• Give Black women the space and time to breathe.
• CiteASista .
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Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.

Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet].

Chapter 9 methods for literature reviews.

Guy Paré and Spyros Kitsiou .

9.1. Introduction

Literature reviews play a critical role in scholarship because science remains, first and foremost, a cumulative endeavour ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). As in any academic discipline, rigorous knowledge syntheses are becoming indispensable in keeping up with an exponentially growing eHealth literature, assisting practitioners, academics, and graduate students in finding, evaluating, and synthesizing the contents of many empirical and conceptual papers. Among other methods, literature reviews are essential for: (a) identifying what has been written on a subject or topic; (b) determining the extent to which a specific research area reveals any interpretable trends or patterns; (c) aggregating empirical findings related to a narrow research question to support evidence-based practice; (d) generating new frameworks and theories; and (e) identifying topics or questions requiring more investigation ( Paré, Trudel, Jaana, & Kitsiou, 2015 ).

Literature reviews can take two major forms. The most prevalent one is the “literature review” or “background” section within a journal paper or a chapter in a graduate thesis. This section synthesizes the extant literature and usually identifies the gaps in knowledge that the empirical study addresses ( Sylvester, Tate, & Johnstone, 2013 ). It may also provide a theoretical foundation for the proposed study, substantiate the presence of the research problem, justify the research as one that contributes something new to the cumulated knowledge, or validate the methods and approaches for the proposed study ( Hart, 1998 ; Levy & Ellis, 2006 ).

The second form of literature review, which is the focus of this chapter, constitutes an original and valuable work of research in and of itself ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Rather than providing a base for a researcher’s own work, it creates a solid starting point for all members of the community interested in a particular area or topic ( Mulrow, 1987 ). The so-called “review article” is a journal-length paper which has an overarching purpose to synthesize the literature in a field, without collecting or analyzing any primary data ( Green, Johnson, & Adams, 2006 ).

When appropriately conducted, review articles represent powerful information sources for practitioners looking for state-of-the art evidence to guide their decision-making and work practices ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, high-quality reviews become frequently cited pieces of work which researchers seek out as a first clear outline of the literature when undertaking empirical studies ( Cooper, 1988 ; Rowe, 2014 ). Scholars who track and gauge the impact of articles have found that review papers are cited and downloaded more often than any other type of published article ( Cronin, Ryan, & Coughlan, 2008 ; Montori, Wilczynski, Morgan, Haynes, & Hedges, 2003 ; Patsopoulos, Analatos, & Ioannidis, 2005 ). The reason for their popularity may be the fact that reading the review enables one to have an overview, if not a detailed knowledge of the area in question, as well as references to the most useful primary sources ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Although they are not easy to conduct, the commitment to complete a review article provides a tremendous service to one’s academic community ( Paré et al., 2015 ; Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Most, if not all, peer-reviewed journals in the fields of medical informatics publish review articles of some type.

The main objectives of this chapter are fourfold: (a) to provide an overview of the major steps and activities involved in conducting a stand-alone literature review; (b) to describe and contrast the different types of review articles that can contribute to the eHealth knowledge base; (c) to illustrate each review type with one or two examples from the eHealth literature; and (d) to provide a series of recommendations for prospective authors of review articles in this domain.

9.2. Overview of the Literature Review Process and Steps

As explained in Templier and Paré (2015) , there are six generic steps involved in conducting a review article:

• formulating the research question(s) and objective(s),
• searching the extant literature,
• screening for inclusion,
• assessing the quality of primary studies,
• extracting data, and
• analyzing data.

Although these steps are presented here in sequential order, one must keep in mind that the review process can be iterative and that many activities can be initiated during the planning stage and later refined during subsequent phases ( Finfgeld-Connett & Johnson, 2013 ; Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ).

Formulating the research question(s) and objective(s): As a first step, members of the review team must appropriately justify the need for the review itself ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ), identify the review’s main objective(s) ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ), and define the concepts or variables at the heart of their synthesis ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ; Webster & Watson, 2002 ). Importantly, they also need to articulate the research question(s) they propose to investigate ( Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ). In this regard, we concur with Jesson, Matheson, and Lacey (2011) that clearly articulated research questions are key ingredients that guide the entire review methodology; they underscore the type of information that is needed, inform the search for and selection of relevant literature, and guide or orient the subsequent analysis. Searching the extant literature: The next step consists of searching the literature and making decisions about the suitability of material to be considered in the review ( Cooper, 1988 ). There exist three main coverage strategies. First, exhaustive coverage means an effort is made to be as comprehensive as possible in order to ensure that all relevant studies, published and unpublished, are included in the review and, thus, conclusions are based on this all-inclusive knowledge base. The second type of coverage consists of presenting materials that are representative of most other works in a given field or area. Often authors who adopt this strategy will search for relevant articles in a small number of top-tier journals in a field ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In the third strategy, the review team concentrates on prior works that have been central or pivotal to a particular topic. This may include empirical studies or conceptual papers that initiated a line of investigation, changed how problems or questions were framed, introduced new methods or concepts, or engendered important debate ( Cooper, 1988 ). Screening for inclusion: The following step consists of evaluating the applicability of the material identified in the preceding step ( Levy & Ellis, 2006 ; vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). Once a group of potential studies has been identified, members of the review team must screen them to determine their relevance ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). A set of predetermined rules provides a basis for including or excluding certain studies. This exercise requires a significant investment on the part of researchers, who must ensure enhanced objectivity and avoid biases or mistakes. As discussed later in this chapter, for certain types of reviews there must be at least two independent reviewers involved in the screening process and a procedure to resolve disagreements must also be in place ( Liberati et al., 2009 ; Shea et al., 2009 ). Assessing the quality of primary studies: In addition to screening material for inclusion, members of the review team may need to assess the scientific quality of the selected studies, that is, appraise the rigour of the research design and methods. Such formal assessment, which is usually conducted independently by at least two coders, helps members of the review team refine which studies to include in the final sample, determine whether or not the differences in quality may affect their conclusions, or guide how they analyze the data and interpret the findings ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Ascribing quality scores to each primary study or considering through domain-based evaluations which study components have or have not been designed and executed appropriately makes it possible to reflect on the extent to which the selected study addresses possible biases and maximizes validity ( Shea et al., 2009 ). Extracting data: The following step involves gathering or extracting applicable information from each primary study included in the sample and deciding what is relevant to the problem of interest ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Indeed, the type of data that should be recorded mainly depends on the initial research questions ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ). However, important information may also be gathered about how, when, where and by whom the primary study was conducted, the research design and methods, or qualitative/quantitative results ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Analyzing and synthesizing data : As a final step, members of the review team must collate, summarize, aggregate, organize, and compare the evidence extracted from the included studies. The extracted data must be presented in a meaningful way that suggests a new contribution to the extant literature ( Jesson et al., 2011 ). Webster and Watson (2002) warn researchers that literature reviews should be much more than lists of papers and should provide a coherent lens to make sense of extant knowledge on a given topic. There exist several methods and techniques for synthesizing quantitative (e.g., frequency analysis, meta-analysis) and qualitative (e.g., grounded theory, narrative analysis, meta-ethnography) evidence ( Dixon-Woods, Agarwal, Jones, Young, & Sutton, 2005 ; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

9.3. Types of Review Articles and Brief Illustrations

EHealth researchers have at their disposal a number of approaches and methods for making sense out of existing literature, all with the purpose of casting current research findings into historical contexts or explaining contradictions that might exist among a set of primary research studies conducted on a particular topic. Our classification scheme is largely inspired from Paré and colleagues’ (2015) typology. Below we present and illustrate those review types that we feel are central to the growth and development of the eHealth domain.

9.3.1. Narrative Reviews

The narrative review is the “traditional” way of reviewing the extant literature and is skewed towards a qualitative interpretation of prior knowledge ( Sylvester et al., 2013 ). Put simply, a narrative review attempts to summarize or synthesize what has been written on a particular topic but does not seek generalization or cumulative knowledge from what is reviewed ( Davies, 2000 ; Green et al., 2006 ). Instead, the review team often undertakes the task of accumulating and synthesizing the literature to demonstrate the value of a particular point of view ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ). As such, reviewers may selectively ignore or limit the attention paid to certain studies in order to make a point. In this rather unsystematic approach, the selection of information from primary articles is subjective, lacks explicit criteria for inclusion and can lead to biased interpretations or inferences ( Green et al., 2006 ). There are several narrative reviews in the particular eHealth domain, as in all fields, which follow such an unstructured approach ( Silva et al., 2015 ; Paul et al., 2015 ).

Despite these criticisms, this type of review can be very useful in gathering together a volume of literature in a specific subject area and synthesizing it. As mentioned above, its primary purpose is to provide the reader with a comprehensive background for understanding current knowledge and highlighting the significance of new research ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Faculty like to use narrative reviews in the classroom because they are often more up to date than textbooks, provide a single source for students to reference, and expose students to peer-reviewed literature ( Green et al., 2006 ). For researchers, narrative reviews can inspire research ideas by identifying gaps or inconsistencies in a body of knowledge, thus helping researchers to determine research questions or formulate hypotheses. Importantly, narrative reviews can also be used as educational articles to bring practitioners up to date with certain topics of issues ( Green et al., 2006 ).

Recently, there have been several efforts to introduce more rigour in narrative reviews that will elucidate common pitfalls and bring changes into their publication standards. Information systems researchers, among others, have contributed to advancing knowledge on how to structure a “traditional” review. For instance, Levy and Ellis (2006) proposed a generic framework for conducting such reviews. Their model follows the systematic data processing approach comprised of three steps, namely: (a) literature search and screening; (b) data extraction and analysis; and (c) writing the literature review. They provide detailed and very helpful instructions on how to conduct each step of the review process. As another methodological contribution, vom Brocke et al. (2009) offered a series of guidelines for conducting literature reviews, with a particular focus on how to search and extract the relevant body of knowledge. Last, Bandara, Miskon, and Fielt (2011) proposed a structured, predefined and tool-supported method to identify primary studies within a feasible scope, extract relevant content from identified articles, synthesize and analyze the findings, and effectively write and present the results of the literature review. We highly recommend that prospective authors of narrative reviews consult these useful sources before embarking on their work.

Darlow and Wen (2015) provide a good example of a highly structured narrative review in the eHealth field. These authors synthesized published articles that describe the development process of mobile health ( m-health ) interventions for patients’ cancer care self-management. As in most narrative reviews, the scope of the research questions being investigated is broad: (a) how development of these systems are carried out; (b) which methods are used to investigate these systems; and (c) what conclusions can be drawn as a result of the development of these systems. To provide clear answers to these questions, a literature search was conducted on six electronic databases and Google Scholar . The search was performed using several terms and free text words, combining them in an appropriate manner. Four inclusion and three exclusion criteria were utilized during the screening process. Both authors independently reviewed each of the identified articles to determine eligibility and extract study information. A flow diagram shows the number of studies identified, screened, and included or excluded at each stage of study selection. In terms of contributions, this review provides a series of practical recommendations for m-health intervention development.

9.3.2. Descriptive or Mapping Reviews

The primary goal of a descriptive review is to determine the extent to which a body of knowledge in a particular research topic reveals any interpretable pattern or trend with respect to pre-existing propositions, theories, methodologies or findings ( King & He, 2005 ; Paré et al., 2015 ). In contrast with narrative reviews, descriptive reviews follow a systematic and transparent procedure, including searching, screening and classifying studies ( Petersen, Vakkalanka, & Kuzniarz, 2015 ). Indeed, structured search methods are used to form a representative sample of a larger group of published works ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, authors of descriptive reviews extract from each study certain characteristics of interest, such as publication year, research methods, data collection techniques, and direction or strength of research outcomes (e.g., positive, negative, or non-significant) in the form of frequency analysis to produce quantitative results ( Sylvester et al., 2013 ). In essence, each study included in a descriptive review is treated as the unit of analysis and the published literature as a whole provides a database from which the authors attempt to identify any interpretable trends or draw overall conclusions about the merits of existing conceptualizations, propositions, methods or findings ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In doing so, a descriptive review may claim that its findings represent the state of the art in a particular domain ( King & He, 2005 ).

In the fields of health sciences and medical informatics, reviews that focus on examining the range, nature and evolution of a topic area are described by Anderson, Allen, Peckham, and Goodwin (2008) as mapping reviews . Like descriptive reviews, the research questions are generic and usually relate to publication patterns and trends. There is no preconceived plan to systematically review all of the literature although this can be done. Instead, researchers often present studies that are representative of most works published in a particular area and they consider a specific time frame to be mapped.

An example of this approach in the eHealth domain is offered by DeShazo, Lavallie, and Wolf (2009). The purpose of this descriptive or mapping review was to characterize publication trends in the medical informatics literature over a 20-year period (1987 to 2006). To achieve this ambitious objective, the authors performed a bibliometric analysis of medical informatics citations indexed in medline using publication trends, journal frequencies, impact factors, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) term frequencies, and characteristics of citations. Findings revealed that there were over 77,000 medical informatics articles published during the covered period in numerous journals and that the average annual growth rate was 12%. The MeSH term analysis also suggested a strong interdisciplinary trend. Finally, average impact scores increased over time with two notable growth periods. Overall, patterns in research outputs that seem to characterize the historic trends and current components of the field of medical informatics suggest it may be a maturing discipline (DeShazo et al., 2009).

9.3.3. Scoping Reviews

Scoping reviews attempt to provide an initial indication of the potential size and nature of the extant literature on an emergent topic (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Daudt, van Mossel, & Scott, 2013 ; Levac, Colquhoun, & O’Brien, 2010). A scoping review may be conducted to examine the extent, range and nature of research activities in a particular area, determine the value of undertaking a full systematic review (discussed next), or identify research gaps in the extant literature ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In line with their main objective, scoping reviews usually conclude with the presentation of a detailed research agenda for future works along with potential implications for both practice and research.

Unlike narrative and descriptive reviews, the whole point of scoping the field is to be as comprehensive as possible, including grey literature (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). Inclusion and exclusion criteria must be established to help researchers eliminate studies that are not aligned with the research questions. It is also recommended that at least two independent coders review abstracts yielded from the search strategy and then the full articles for study selection ( Daudt et al., 2013 ). The synthesized evidence from content or thematic analysis is relatively easy to present in tabular form (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

One of the most highly cited scoping reviews in the eHealth domain was published by Archer, Fevrier-Thomas, Lokker, McKibbon, and Straus (2011) . These authors reviewed the existing literature on personal health record ( phr ) systems including design, functionality, implementation, applications, outcomes, and benefits. Seven databases were searched from 1985 to March 2010. Several search terms relating to phr s were used during this process. Two authors independently screened titles and abstracts to determine inclusion status. A second screen of full-text articles, again by two independent members of the research team, ensured that the studies described phr s. All in all, 130 articles met the criteria and their data were extracted manually into a database. The authors concluded that although there is a large amount of survey, observational, cohort/panel, and anecdotal evidence of phr benefits and satisfaction for patients, more research is needed to evaluate the results of phr implementations. Their in-depth analysis of the literature signalled that there is little solid evidence from randomized controlled trials or other studies through the use of phr s. Hence, they suggested that more research is needed that addresses the current lack of understanding of optimal functionality and usability of these systems, and how they can play a beneficial role in supporting patient self-management ( Archer et al., 2011 ).

9.3.4. Forms of Aggregative Reviews

Healthcare providers, practitioners, and policy-makers are nowadays overwhelmed with large volumes of information, including research-based evidence from numerous clinical trials and evaluation studies, assessing the effectiveness of health information technologies and interventions ( Ammenwerth & de Keizer, 2004 ; Deshazo et al., 2009 ). It is unrealistic to expect that all these disparate actors will have the time, skills, and necessary resources to identify the available evidence in the area of their expertise and consider it when making decisions. Systematic reviews that involve the rigorous application of scientific strategies aimed at limiting subjectivity and bias (i.e., systematic and random errors) can respond to this challenge.

Systematic reviews attempt to aggregate, appraise, and synthesize in a single source all empirical evidence that meet a set of previously specified eligibility criteria in order to answer a clearly formulated and often narrow research question on a particular topic of interest to support evidence-based practice ( Liberati et al., 2009 ). They adhere closely to explicit scientific principles ( Liberati et al., 2009 ) and rigorous methodological guidelines (Higgins & Green, 2008) aimed at reducing random and systematic errors that can lead to deviations from the truth in results or inferences. The use of explicit methods allows systematic reviews to aggregate a large body of research evidence, assess whether effects or relationships are in the same direction and of the same general magnitude, explain possible inconsistencies between study results, and determine the strength of the overall evidence for every outcome of interest based on the quality of included studies and the general consistency among them ( Cook, Mulrow, & Haynes, 1997 ). The main procedures of a systematic review involve:

• Formulating a review question and developing a search strategy based on explicit inclusion criteria for the identification of eligible studies (usually described in the context of a detailed review protocol).
• Searching for eligible studies using multiple databases and information sources, including grey literature sources, without any language restrictions.
• Selecting studies, extracting data, and assessing risk of bias in a duplicate manner using two independent reviewers to avoid random or systematic errors in the process.
• Analyzing data using quantitative or qualitative methods.
• Presenting results in summary of findings tables.
• Interpreting results and drawing conclusions.

Many systematic reviews, but not all, use statistical methods to combine the results of independent studies into a single quantitative estimate or summary effect size. Known as meta-analyses , these reviews use specific data extraction and statistical techniques (e.g., network, frequentist, or Bayesian meta-analyses) to calculate from each study by outcome of interest an effect size along with a confidence interval that reflects the degree of uncertainty behind the point estimate of effect ( Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009 ; Deeks, Higgins, & Altman, 2008 ). Subsequently, they use fixed or random-effects analysis models to combine the results of the included studies, assess statistical heterogeneity, and calculate a weighted average of the effect estimates from the different studies, taking into account their sample sizes. The summary effect size is a value that reflects the average magnitude of the intervention effect for a particular outcome of interest or, more generally, the strength of a relationship between two variables across all studies included in the systematic review. By statistically combining data from multiple studies, meta-analyses can create more precise and reliable estimates of intervention effects than those derived from individual studies alone, when these are examined independently as discrete sources of information.

The review by Gurol-Urganci, de Jongh, Vodopivec-Jamsek, Atun, and Car (2013) on the effects of mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments is an illustrative example of a high-quality systematic review with meta-analysis. Missed appointments are a major cause of inefficiency in healthcare delivery with substantial monetary costs to health systems. These authors sought to assess whether mobile phone-based appointment reminders delivered through Short Message Service ( sms ) or Multimedia Messaging Service ( mms ) are effective in improving rates of patient attendance and reducing overall costs. To this end, they conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases using highly sensitive search strategies without language or publication-type restrictions to identify all rct s that are eligible for inclusion. In order to minimize the risk of omitting eligible studies not captured by the original search, they supplemented all electronic searches with manual screening of trial registers and references contained in the included studies. Study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments were performed inde­­pen­dently by two coders using standardized methods to ensure consistency and to eliminate potential errors. Findings from eight rct s involving 6,615 participants were pooled into meta-analyses to calculate the magnitude of effects that mobile text message reminders have on the rate of attendance at healthcare appointments compared to no reminders and phone call reminders.

Meta-analyses are regarded as powerful tools for deriving meaningful conclusions. However, there are situations in which it is neither reasonable nor appropriate to pool studies together using meta-analytic methods simply because there is extensive clinical heterogeneity between the included studies or variation in measurement tools, comparisons, or outcomes of interest. In these cases, systematic reviews can use qualitative synthesis methods such as vote counting, content analysis, classification schemes and tabulations, as an alternative approach to narratively synthesize the results of the independent studies included in the review. This form of review is known as qualitative systematic review.

A rigorous example of one such review in the eHealth domain is presented by Mickan, Atherton, Roberts, Heneghan, and Tilson (2014) on the use of handheld computers by healthcare professionals and their impact on access to information and clinical decision-making. In line with the methodological guide­lines for systematic reviews, these authors: (a) developed and registered with prospero ( www.crd.york.ac.uk/ prospero / ) an a priori review protocol; (b) conducted comprehensive searches for eligible studies using multiple databases and other supplementary strategies (e.g., forward searches); and (c) subsequently carried out study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments in a duplicate manner to eliminate potential errors in the review process. Heterogeneity between the included studies in terms of reported outcomes and measures precluded the use of meta-analytic methods. To this end, the authors resorted to using narrative analysis and synthesis to describe the effectiveness of handheld computers on accessing information for clinical knowledge, adherence to safety and clinical quality guidelines, and diagnostic decision-making.

In recent years, the number of systematic reviews in the field of health informatics has increased considerably. Systematic reviews with discordant findings can cause great confusion and make it difficult for decision-makers to interpret the review-level evidence ( Moher, 2013 ). Therefore, there is a growing need for appraisal and synthesis of prior systematic reviews to ensure that decision-making is constantly informed by the best available accumulated evidence. Umbrella reviews , also known as overviews of systematic reviews, are tertiary types of evidence synthesis that aim to accomplish this; that is, they aim to compare and contrast findings from multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Umbrella reviews generally adhere to the same principles and rigorous methodological guidelines used in systematic reviews. However, the unit of analysis in umbrella reviews is the systematic review rather than the primary study ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Unlike systematic reviews that have a narrow focus of inquiry, umbrella reviews focus on broader research topics for which there are several potential interventions ( Smith, Devane, Begley, & Clarke, 2011 ). A recent umbrella review on the effects of home telemonitoring interventions for patients with heart failure critically appraised, compared, and synthesized evidence from 15 systematic reviews to investigate which types of home telemonitoring technologies and forms of interventions are more effective in reducing mortality and hospital admissions ( Kitsiou, Paré, & Jaana, 2015 ).

9.3.5. Realist Reviews

Realist reviews are theory-driven interpretative reviews developed to inform, enhance, or supplement conventional systematic reviews by making sense of heterogeneous evidence about complex interventions applied in diverse contexts in a way that informs policy decision-making ( Greenhalgh, Wong, Westhorp, & Pawson, 2011 ). They originated from criticisms of positivist systematic reviews which centre on their “simplistic” underlying assumptions ( Oates, 2011 ). As explained above, systematic reviews seek to identify causation. Such logic is appropriate for fields like medicine and education where findings of randomized controlled trials can be aggregated to see whether a new treatment or intervention does improve outcomes. However, many argue that it is not possible to establish such direct causal links between interventions and outcomes in fields such as social policy, management, and information systems where for any intervention there is unlikely to be a regular or consistent outcome ( Oates, 2011 ; Pawson, 2006 ; Rousseau, Manning, & Denyer, 2008 ).

To circumvent these limitations, Pawson, Greenhalgh, Harvey, and Walshe (2005) have proposed a new approach for synthesizing knowledge that seeks to unpack the mechanism of how “complex interventions” work in particular contexts. The basic research question — what works? — which is usually associated with systematic reviews changes to: what is it about this intervention that works, for whom, in what circumstances, in what respects and why? Realist reviews have no particular preference for either quantitative or qualitative evidence. As a theory-building approach, a realist review usually starts by articulating likely underlying mechanisms and then scrutinizes available evidence to find out whether and where these mechanisms are applicable ( Shepperd et al., 2009 ). Primary studies found in the extant literature are viewed as case studies which can test and modify the initial theories ( Rousseau et al., 2008 ).

The main objective pursued in the realist review conducted by Otte-Trojel, de Bont, Rundall, and van de Klundert (2014) was to examine how patient portals contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The specific goals were to investigate how outcomes are produced and, most importantly, how variations in outcomes can be explained. The research team started with an exploratory review of background documents and research studies to identify ways in which patient portals may contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The authors identified six main ways which represent “educated guesses” to be tested against the data in the evaluation studies. These studies were identified through a formal and systematic search in four databases between 2003 and 2013. Two members of the research team selected the articles using a pre-established list of inclusion and exclusion criteria and following a two-step procedure. The authors then extracted data from the selected articles and created several tables, one for each outcome category. They organized information to bring forward those mechanisms where patient portals contribute to outcomes and the variation in outcomes across different contexts.

9.3.6. Critical Reviews

Lastly, critical reviews aim to provide a critical evaluation and interpretive analysis of existing literature on a particular topic of interest to reveal strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, controversies, inconsistencies, and/or other important issues with respect to theories, hypotheses, research methods or results ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ; Kirkevold, 1997 ). Unlike other review types, critical reviews attempt to take a reflective account of the research that has been done in a particular area of interest, and assess its credibility by using appraisal instruments or critical interpretive methods. In this way, critical reviews attempt to constructively inform other scholars about the weaknesses of prior research and strengthen knowledge development by giving focus and direction to studies for further improvement ( Kirkevold, 1997 ).

Kitsiou, Paré, and Jaana (2013) provide an example of a critical review that assessed the methodological quality of prior systematic reviews of home telemonitoring studies for chronic patients. The authors conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases to identify eligible reviews and subsequently used a validated instrument to conduct an in-depth quality appraisal. Results indicate that the majority of systematic reviews in this particular area suffer from important methodological flaws and biases that impair their internal validity and limit their usefulness for clinical and decision-making purposes. To this end, they provide a number of recommendations to strengthen knowledge development towards improving the design and execution of future reviews on home telemonitoring.

9.4. Summary

Table 9.1 outlines the main types of literature reviews that were described in the previous sub-sections and summarizes the main characteristics that distinguish one review type from another. It also includes key references to methodological guidelines and useful sources that can be used by eHealth scholars and researchers for planning and developing reviews.

Typology of Literature Reviews (adapted from Paré et al., 2015).

As shown in Table 9.1 , each review type addresses different kinds of research questions or objectives, which subsequently define and dictate the methods and approaches that need to be used to achieve the overarching goal(s) of the review. For example, in the case of narrative reviews, there is greater flexibility in searching and synthesizing articles ( Green et al., 2006 ). Researchers are often relatively free to use a diversity of approaches to search, identify, and select relevant scientific articles, describe their operational characteristics, present how the individual studies fit together, and formulate conclusions. On the other hand, systematic reviews are characterized by their high level of systematicity, rigour, and use of explicit methods, based on an “a priori” review plan that aims to minimize bias in the analysis and synthesis process (Higgins & Green, 2008). Some reviews are exploratory in nature (e.g., scoping/mapping reviews), whereas others may be conducted to discover patterns (e.g., descriptive reviews) or involve a synthesis approach that may include the critical analysis of prior research ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Hence, in order to select the most appropriate type of review, it is critical to know before embarking on a review project, why the research synthesis is conducted and what type of methods are best aligned with the pursued goals.

9.5. Concluding Remarks

In light of the increased use of evidence-based practice and research generating stronger evidence ( Grady et al., 2011 ; Lyden et al., 2013 ), review articles have become essential tools for summarizing, synthesizing, integrating or critically appraising prior knowledge in the eHealth field. As mentioned earlier, when rigorously conducted review articles represent powerful information sources for eHealth scholars and practitioners looking for state-of-the-art evidence. The typology of literature reviews we used herein will allow eHealth researchers, graduate students and practitioners to gain a better understanding of the similarities and differences between review types.

We must stress that this classification scheme does not privilege any specific type of review as being of higher quality than another ( Paré et al., 2015 ). As explained above, each type of review has its own strengths and limitations. Having said that, we realize that the methodological rigour of any review — be it qualitative, quantitative or mixed — is a critical aspect that should be considered seriously by prospective authors. In the present context, the notion of rigour refers to the reliability and validity of the review process described in section 9.2. For one thing, reliability is related to the reproducibility of the review process and steps, which is facilitated by a comprehensive documentation of the literature search process, extraction, coding and analysis performed in the review. Whether the search is comprehensive or not, whether it involves a methodical approach for data extraction and synthesis or not, it is important that the review documents in an explicit and transparent manner the steps and approach that were used in the process of its development. Next, validity characterizes the degree to which the review process was conducted appropriately. It goes beyond documentation and reflects decisions related to the selection of the sources, the search terms used, the period of time covered, the articles selected in the search, and the application of backward and forward searches ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). In short, the rigour of any review article is reflected by the explicitness of its methods (i.e., transparency) and the soundness of the approach used. We refer those interested in the concepts of rigour and quality to the work of Templier and Paré (2015) which offers a detailed set of methodological guidelines for conducting and evaluating various types of review articles.

To conclude, our main objective in this chapter was to demystify the various types of literature reviews that are central to the continuous development of the eHealth field. It is our hope that our descriptive account will serve as a valuable source for those conducting, evaluating or using reviews in this important and growing domain.

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• King W. R., He J. Understanding the role and methods of meta-analysis in IS research. Communications of the Association for Information Systems. 2005; 16 :1.
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• Kitsiou S., Paré G., Jaana M. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of home telemonitoring interventions for patients with chronic diseases: a critical assessment of their methodological quality. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2013; 15 (7):e150. [ PMC free article : PMC3785977 ] [ PubMed : 23880072 ]
• Kitsiou S., Paré G., Jaana M. Effects of home telemonitoring interventions on patients with chronic heart failure: an overview of systematic reviews. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2015; 17 (3):e63. [ PMC free article : PMC4376138 ] [ PubMed : 25768664 ]
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• Levy Y., Ellis T.J. A systems approach to conduct an effective literature review in support of information systems research. Informing Science. 2006; 9 :181–211.
• Liberati A., Altman D. G., Tetzlaff J., Mulrow C., Gøtzsche P. C., Ioannidis J. P. A. et al. Moher D. The prisma statement for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses of studies that evaluate health care interventions: Explanation and elaboration. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2009; 151 (4):W-65. [ PubMed : 19622512 ]
• Lyden J. R., Zickmund S. L., Bhargava T. D., Bryce C. L., Conroy M. B., Fischer G. S. et al. McTigue K. M. Implementing health information technology in a patient-centered manner: Patient experiences with an online evidence-based lifestyle intervention. Journal for Healthcare Quality. 2013; 35 (5):47–57. [ PubMed : 24004039 ]
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• Moher D. The problem of duplicate systematic reviews. British Medical Journal. 2013; 347 (5040) [ PubMed : 23945367 ] [ CrossRef ]
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• Mulrow C. D. The medical review article: state of the science. Annals of Internal Medicine. 1987; 106 (3):485–488. [ PubMed : 3813259 ] [ CrossRef ]
• Evidence-based information systems: A decade later. Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems ; 2011. Retrieved from http://aisel ​.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent ​.cgi?article ​=1221&context ​=ecis2011 .
• Okoli C., Schabram K. A guide to conducting a systematic literature review of information systems research. ssrn Electronic Journal. 2010
• Otte-Trojel T., de Bont A., Rundall T. G., van de Klundert J. How outcomes are achieved through patient portals: a realist review. Journal of American Medical Informatics Association. 2014; 21 (4):751–757. [ PMC free article : PMC4078283 ] [ PubMed : 24503882 ]
• Paré G., Trudel M.-C., Jaana M., Kitsiou S. Synthesizing information systems knowledge: A typology of literature reviews. Information & Management. 2015; 52 (2):183–199.
• Patsopoulos N. A., Analatos A. A., Ioannidis J.P. A. Relative citation impact of various study designs in the health sciences. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2005; 293 (19):2362–2366. [ PubMed : 15900006 ]
• Paul M. M., Greene C. M., Newton-Dame R., Thorpe L. E., Perlman S. E., McVeigh K. H., Gourevitch M.N. The state of population health surveillance using electronic health records: A narrative review. Population Health Management. 2015; 18 (3):209–216. [ PubMed : 25608033 ]
• Pawson R. Evidence-based policy: a realist perspective. London: SAGE Publications; 2006.
• Pawson R., Greenhalgh T., Harvey G., Walshe K. Realist review—a new method of systematic review designed for complex policy interventions. Journal of Health Services Research & Policy. 2005; 10 (Suppl 1):21–34. [ PubMed : 16053581 ]
• Petersen K., Vakkalanka S., Kuzniarz L. Guidelines for conducting systematic mapping studies in software engineering: An update. Information and Software Technology. 2015; 64 :1–18.
• Petticrew M., Roberts H. Systematic reviews in the social sciences: A practical guide. Malden, ma : Blackwell Publishing Co; 2006.
• Rousseau D. M., Manning J., Denyer D. Evidence in management and organizational science: Assembling the field’s full weight of scientific knowledge through syntheses. The Academy of Management Annals. 2008; 2 (1):475–515.
• Rowe F. What literature review is not: diversity, boundaries and recommendations. European Journal of Information Systems. 2014; 23 (3):241–255.
• Shea B. J., Hamel C., Wells G. A., Bouter L. M., Kristjansson E., Grimshaw J. et al. Boers M. amstar is a reliable and valid measurement tool to assess the methodological quality of systematic reviews. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 2009; 62 (10):1013–1020. [ PubMed : 19230606 ]
• Shepperd S., Lewin S., Straus S., Clarke M., Eccles M. P., Fitzpatrick R. et al. Sheikh A. Can we systematically review studies that evaluate complex interventions? PLoS Medicine. 2009; 6 (8):e1000086. [ PMC free article : PMC2717209 ] [ PubMed : 19668360 ]
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• Sylvester A., Tate M., Johnstone D. Beyond synthesis: re-presenting heterogeneous research literature. Behaviour & Information Technology. 2013; 32 (12):1199–1215.
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• Reconstructing the giant: on the importance of rigour in documenting the literature search process. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 17th European Conference on Information Systems ( ecis 2009); Verona, Italy. 2009.
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This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons License, Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0): see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

• Cite this Page Paré G, Kitsiou S. Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews. In: Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.
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• Introduction
• Overview of the Literature Review Process and Steps
• Types of Review Articles and Brief Illustrations
• Concluding Remarks

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Literature Review Example/Sample

Detailed Walkthrough + Free Literature Review Template

If you’re working on a dissertation or thesis and are looking for an example of a strong literature review chapter , you’ve come to the right place.

In this video, we walk you through an A-grade literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction . We start off by discussing the five core sections of a literature review chapter by unpacking our free literature review template . This includes:

• The literature review opening/ introduction section
• The theoretical framework (or foundation of theory)
• The empirical research
• The research gap
• The closing section

We then progress to the sample literature review (from an A-grade Master’s-level dissertation) to show how these concepts are applied in the literature review chapter. You can access the free resources mentioned in this video below.

PS – If you’re working on a dissertation, be sure to also check out our collection of dissertation and thesis examples here .

FAQ: Literature Review Example

Literature review example: frequently asked questions, is the sample literature review real.

Yes. The literature review example is an extract from a Master’s-level dissertation for an MBA program. It has not been edited in any way.

Can I replicate this literature review for my dissertation?

As we discuss in the video, every literature review will be slightly different, depending on the university’s unique requirements, as well as the nature of the research itself. Therefore, you’ll need to tailor your literature review to suit your specific context.

You can learn more about the basics of writing a literature review here .

Where can I find more examples of literature reviews?

The best place to find more examples of literature review chapters would be within dissertation/thesis databases. These databases include dissertations, theses and research projects that have successfully passed the assessment criteria for the respective university, meaning that you have at least some sort of quality assurance. 

The Open Access Thesis Database (OATD) is a good starting point. 

How do I get the literature review template?

You can access our free literature review chapter template here .

Is the template really free?

Yes. There is no cost for the template and you are free to use it as you wish. 

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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• Public Health
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• Literature Reviews + Annotating
• How to Access Full Text
• Background Information
• Books, E-books, Dissertations
• Articles, News, Who Cited This, More
• Google Scholar and Google Books
• PUBMED and EMBASE
• Statistics -- United States
• Statistics -- Worldwide
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Citing Sources This link opens in a new window
• Copyright This link opens in a new window
• Evaluating Information This link opens in a new window
• RefWorks Guide and Help This link opens in a new window
• Epidemic Proportions
• Environment and Your Health, AS 280.335, Spring 2024
• Honors in Public Health, AS280.495, Fall 23-Spr 2024
• Intro to Public Health, AS280.101, Spring 2024
• Research Methods in Public Health, AS280.240, Spring 2024
• Social+Behavioral Determinants of Health, AS280.355, Spring 2024
• Feedback (for class use only)

Literature Reviews

• Organizing/Synthesizing
• Peer Review
• Ulrich's -- One More Way To Find Peer-reviewed Papers

"Literature review," "systematic literature review," "integrative literature review" -- these are terms used in different disciplines for basically the same thing -- a rigorous examination of the scholarly literature about a topic (at different levels of rigor, and with some different emphases).  

1. Our library's guide to Writing a Literature Review

2. Other helpful sites

• Writing Center at UNC (Chapel Hill) -- A very good guide about lit reviews and how to write them
• Literature Review: Synthesizing Multiple Sources (LSU, June 2011 but good; PDF) -- Planning, writing, and tips for revising your paper

3. Welch Library's list of the types of expert reviews

Doing a good job of organizing your information makes writing about it a lot easier.

You can organize your sources using a citation manager, such as refworks , or use a matrix (if you only have a few references):.

• Use Google Sheets, Word, Excel, or whatever you prefer to create a table
• The column headings should include the citation information, and the main points that you want to track, as shown

Synthesizing your information is not just summarizing it. Here are processes and examples about how to combine your sources into a good piece of writing:

• Purdue OWL's Synthesizing Sources
• Synthesizing Sources (California State University, Northridge)

Annotated Bibliography  

An "annotation" is a note or comment. An "annotated bibliography" is a "list of citations to books, articles, and [other items]. Each citation is followed by a brief...descriptive and evaluative paragraph, [whose purpose is] to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited."*

• Sage Research Methods (database) --> Empirical Research and Writing (ebook) -- Chapter 3: Doing Pre-research  
• Purdue's OWL (Online Writing Lab) includes definitions and samples of annotations  
• Cornell's guide * to writing annotated bibliographies  

* Thank you to Olin Library Reference, Research & Learning Services, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY, USA https://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography

What does "peer-reviewed" mean?

• If an article has been peer-reviewed before being published, it means that the article has been read by other people in the same field of study ("peers").
• The author's reviewers have commented on the article, not only noting typos and possible errors, but also giving a judgment about whether or not the article should be published by the journal to which it was submitted.

How do I find "peer-reviewed" materials?

• Most of the the research articles in scholarly journals are peer-reviewed.
• Many databases allow you to check a box that says "peer-reviewed," or to see which results in your list of results are from peer-reviewed sources. Some of the databases that provide this are Academic Search Ultimate, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Sociological Abstracts.

What kinds of materials are *not* peer-reviewed?

• open web pages
• most newspapers, newsletters, and news items in journals
• letters to the editor
• press releases
• columns and blogs
• book reviews
• anything in a popular magazine (e.g., Time, Newsweek, Glamour, Men's Health)

If a piece of information wasn't peer-reviewed, does that mean that I can't trust it at all?

No; sometimes you can. For example, the preprints submitted to well-known sites such as  arXiv  (mainly covering physics) and  CiteSeerX (mainly covering computer science) are probably trustworthy, as are the databases and web pages produced by entities such as the National Library of Medicine, the Smithsonian Institution, and the American Cancer Society.

Is this paper peer-reviewed? Ulrichsweb will tell you.

1) On the library home page , choose "Articles and Databases" --> "Databases" --> Ulrichsweb

2) Put in the title of the JOURNAL (not the article), in quotation marks so all the words are next to each other

3) Mouse over the black icon, and you'll see that it means "refereed" (which means peer-reviewed, because it's been looked at by referees or reviewers). This journal is not peer-reviewed, because none of the formats have a black icon next to it:

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Literature Reviews for the Health Sciences: Introduction

Introduction.

• Research Question
• How to search
• Where to search
• Grey Literature in Health This link opens in a new window
• Reference Management Software
• Resources on Literature Reviews

Literature reviews report the current knowledge on a topic and provide a summary of research from previously published studies. The synthesis of the literature reviewed provides a comprehensive overview of the knowledge available on the topic.

The Literature review also builds a case or identifies a research gap which assists an author in positioning his or her own work in the context of the previous studies (Baker 2016).

A literature review is a search and evaluation of the available literature in your chosen topic area; it documents the state of the art with respect to the topic you are writing about.

The process:

• Surveys the literature in your chosen area of study
• Synthesises the information in that literature into a summary
• Critically analyses the information gathered, identifies gaps in the current knowledge, showing limitations of theories and points of view and formulating areas for further research

Types of Literature Reviews

The Purpose of the Literature Review

Related / useful uc library guides.

Baker, Joy. (2016). The Purpose, Process, and Methods of Writing a Literature Review. AORN journal. 103. 265-269. 10.1016/j.aorn.2016.01.016. 

Frey, B. (2018).  The SAGE encyclopedia of educational research, measurement, and evaluation  (Vols. 1-4). Thousand Oaks,, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781506326139

Grant, M.J. and Booth, A. (2009), A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26: 91-108.  https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x

Tricco, AC, Lillie, E, Zarin, W, O'Brien, KK, Colquhoun, H, Levac, D, Moher, D, Peters, MD, Horsley, T, Weeks, L, Hempel, S et al. PRISMA extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR): checklist and explanation. Ann Intern Med. 2018,169(7):467-473.  doi:10.7326/M18-0850.

Tricco AC, Lillie E, Zarin W, O'Brien KK, Colquhoun H, Levac D, Moher D, Peters MDJ, Horsley T, Weeks L, Hempel S, Akl EA, Chang C, McGowan J, Stewart L, Hartling L, Aldcroft A, Wilson MG, Garritty C, Lewin S, Godfrey CM, Macdonald MT, Langlois EV, Soares-Weiser K, Moriarty J, Clifford T, Tunçalp Ö, Straus SE. PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR): Checklist and Explanation. Ann Intern Med. 2018 Oct 2;169(7):467-473. doi: 10.7326/M18-0850. Epub 2018 Sep 4. PMID: 30178033.

(1) Griffith University subject guides : https://libraryguides.griffith.edu.au/systematic-literature-reviews-for-education/introduction 

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Income, Urbanicity Influence Perceptions of Factors that Shape Health

Literature reviews ..

A literature review is systematic examination of existing research on a proposed topic (1). Public health professionals often consult literature reviews to stay up-to-date on research in their field (1–3). Researchers also frequently use literature reviews as a way to identify gaps in the research and provide a background for continuing research on a topic (1,2). This section will provide an overview of the essential elements needed to write a successful literature review.

Collecting Articles

A literature review is systematic examination of existing research on a proposed topic (1). Public health professionals often consult literature reviews to stay up-to-date on research in their field (1–3). Researchers also frequently use literature reviews as a way to identify gaps in the research and provide a background for continuing research on a topic (1,2).   This section will provide an overview of the essential elements needed to write a successful literature review.

Do not hesitate to reach out to a reference librarian at the BUMC Alumni Medical Library for assistance in collecting your research.

Reviewing the Research

After selecting the articles for your review, read each article and takes notes to keep track of each paper (3). One way to effectively take notes is to create a table listing each article’s research question, methods, results, limitations, etc. Once you have finished reading the articles, critically think about why each one is important to your discussion (1,2,4). Try to group articles based on similar content, such as similar study populations, methods, or results (4). Most literature reviews do not require you to organize your articles in a certain manner; however, you should think about how you would logically tie your articles together so that you are analyzing them, not simply summarizing each article (4).

Organizing your Review

While there is no standard organization for a literature review, literature reviews generally follow this structure (1,3):

• Introduction.  The introduction should identify a research question and relate it to a public health topic. The significance of the public health problem and topic should be described.
• Body.  The body of a literature review should be organized so that the review flows logical from one subtopic to another subtopic. Consider breaking this section into the following sections:
• Methods.  Describe how you obtained your articles. Be sure to include the names of search engines and key words used to generate searches. Detail your inclusion and exclusion criteria (i.e. did not fit your definition of your outcome). Consider creating a flow chart to illustrate your search process.
• Results/Discussion.  Explain what the literature says about your question. What did the studies find? Is their conflicting evidence? What are the limitations of the current studies? What gaps exist in the literature? What are the outstanding research questions? A table of your studies can be a great tool to summarize of the essential information.
• Conclusion.  Review your findings and how they relate to your research questions. Use this space to propose needs in the research, if appropriate.

Collecting articles, reviewing your research, and organizing your review are the first steps toward writing a literature review. Reading examples of peer-reviewed literature reviews is an excellent way to brainstorm how to organize your research and tables.

Additional Resources

The following resources also provide a more in-depth discussion on writing literature reviews:

• Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review   (requires BU Kerberos Login)
• Handout on Writing Literature Reviews from UNC Writing Center
• Tips for Writing a Public Health Literature Review from Tulane University
• Get the Lit: The Literature Review Video from Texas A&M University Writing Center
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Literature Reviews [Internet]. The Writing Center. [cited 2014 Jul 15]. Available from: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/literature-reviews/
• Tips for writing a public health literature review [Internet]. Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine 1. Department of Community Health Sciences; [cited 2014 Jul 15]. Available from: http://tulane.edu/publichealth/mchltp/upload/Writing-Lit-review.pdf
• Pautasso M. Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review. PLoS Comput Biol. 2013 Jul 18;9(7):e1003149.
• Get Lit: The Literature Review [Internet]. 2011 [cited 2014 Jul 15]. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1hG99HUaOk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Conducting a Literature Review

• Literature Review
• Developing a Topic
• Planning Your Literature Review
• Developing a Search Strategy
• Managing Citations
• Critical Appraisal Tools
• Writing a Literature Review

Before You Begin to Write.....

Do you have enough information? If you are not sure,

Ask yourself these questions:

• Has my search been wide enough to insure I've found all the relevant material?
• Has it been narrow enough to exclude irrelevant material?
• Is the number of sources I've used appropriate for the length of my paper?

You may have enough information for your literature review when:

• You've used multiple databases and other resources (web portals, repositories, etc.) to get a variety of perspectives on the research topic.
• The same citations are showing up in a variety of databases.
• Your advisor and other trusted experts say you have enough!

You have to stop somewhere and get on with the writing process!

Writing Tips

A literature review is not a list describing or summarizing one piece of literature after another. It’s usually a bad sign to see every paragraph beginning with the name of a researcher. Instead, organize the literature review into sections that present themes or identify trends, including relevant theory. You are not trying to list all the material published, but to synthesize and evaluate it according to the guiding concept of your thesis or research question

If you are writing an  annotated bibliography , you may need to summarize each item briefly, but should still follow through themes and concepts and do some critical assessment of material. Use an overall introduction and conclusion to state the scope of your coverage and to formulate the question, problem, or concept your chosen material illuminates. Usually you will have the option of grouping items into sections—this helps you indicate comparisons and relationships. You may be able to write a paragraph or so to introduce the focus of each section

Layout of Writing a Literature Review

Generally, the purpose of a review is to analyze critically a segment of a published body of knowledge through summary, classification, and comparison of prior research studies, reviews of literature, and theoretical articles.

Writing the introduction:

In the introduction, you should:

• Define or identify the general topic, issue, or area of concern, thus providing an appropriate context for reviewing the literature.
• Point out overall trends in what has been published about the topic; or conflicts in theory, methodology, evidence, and conclusions; or gaps in research and scholarship; or a single problem or new perspective of immediate interest.
• Establish the writer’s reason (point of view) for reviewing the literature; explain the criteria to be used in analyzing and comparing literature and the organization of the review (sequence); and, when necessary, state why certain literature is or is not included (scope).

Writing the body:

In the body, you should:

• Group research studies and other types of literature (reviews, theoretical articles, case studies, etc.) according to common denominators such as qualitative versus quantitative approaches, conclusions of authors, specific purpose or objective, chronology, etc.
• Summarize individual studies or articles with as much or as little detail as each merits according to its comparative importance in the literature, remembering that space (length) denotes significance.
• Provide the reader with strong “umbrella” sentences at beginnings of paragraphs, “signposts” throughout, and brief “so what” summary sentences at intermediate points in the review to aid in understanding comparisons and analyses.

WRITING TIP:  As you are writing the literature review you will mention the author names and the publication years in your text, but you will still need to compile comprehensive list citations for each entry at the end of your review. Follow  APA, MLA, or Chicago style guidelines , as your course requires.

Writing the conclusion:

In the conclusion, you should:

• Summarize major contributions of significant studies and articles to the body of knowledge under review, maintaining the focus established in the introduction.
• Evaluate the current “state of the art” for the body of knowledge reviewed, pointing out major methodological flaws or gaps in research, inconsistencies in theory and findings, and areas or issues pertinent to future study.
• Conclude by providing some insight into the relationship between the central topic of the literature review and a larger area of study such as a discipline, a scientific endeavor, or a profession.
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• Literature reviews

Public Health: Literature reviews

Created by health science librarians.

• Sciwheel & Citation managers
• Data & software
• Grey literature
• Popular search strategies

Section Objective

What is a literature review, clearly stated research question, search terms, searching worksheets, boolean and / or.

• Systematic reviews
• Biostatistics
• Environmental Sciences and Engineering
• Epidemiology
• Health Behavior
• Health Policy and Management
• Maternal and Child Health
• Public Health Leadership

The content in the Literature Review section defines the literature review purpose and process, explains using the PICO format to ask a clear research question, and demonstrates how to evaluate and modify search results to improve the accuracy of the retrieval.

A literature review seeks to identify, analyze and summarize the published research literature about a specific topic.  Literature reviews are assigned as course projects; included as the introductory part of master's and PhD theses; and are conducted before undertaking any new scientific research project.

The purpose of a literature review is to establish what is currently known about a specific topic and to evaluate the strength of the evidence upon which that knowledge is based. A review of a clinical topic may identify implications for clinical practice. Literature reviews also identify areas of a topic that need further research.

A systematic review is a literature review that follows a rigorous process to find all of the research conducted on a topic and then critically appraises the research methods of the highest quality reports. These reviews track and report their search and appraisal methods in addition to providing a summary of the knowledge established by the appraised research.

The UNC Writing Center provides a nice summary of what to consider when writing a literature review for a class assignment. The online book, Doing a literature review in health and social care : a practical guide (2010), is a good resource for more information on this topic.

Obviously, the quality of the search process will determine the quality of all literature reviews. Anyone undertaking a literature review on a new topic would benefit from meeting with a librarian to discuss search strategies. A consultaiton with a librarian is strongly recommended for anyone undertaking a systematic review.

Use the email form on our Ask a Librarian page to arrange a meeting with a librarian.

The first step to a successful literature review search is to state your research question as clearly as possible.

It is important to:

• be as specific as possible
• include all aspects of your question

Clinical and social science questions often have these aspects (PICO):

• People/population/problem  (What are the characteristics of the population?  What is the condition or disease?)
• Intervention (What do you want to do with this patient?  i.e. treat, diagnose)
• Comparisons [not always included]  (What is the alternative to this intervention?  i.e. placebo, different drug, surgery)
• Outcomes  (What are the relevant outcomes?  i.e. morbidity, death, complications)

If the PICO model does not fit your question, try to use other ways to help be sure to articulate all parts of your question. Perhaps asking yourself Who, What, Why, How will help.  

Example Question:  Is acupuncture as effective of a therapy as triptans in the treament of adult migraine?

Note that this question fits the PICO model.

• Population: Adults with migraines
• Intervention: Acupuncture
• Comparison: Triptans/tryptamines
• Outcome: Fewer Headache days, Fewer migraines

A literature review search is an iterative process. Your goal is to find all of the articles that are pertinent to your subject. Successful searching requires you to think about the complexity of language. You need to match the words you use in your search to the words used by article authors and database indexers. A thorough PubMed search must identify the author words likely to be in the title and abstract or the indexer's selected MeSH (Medical Subject Heading) Terms.

Start by doing a preliminary search using the words from the key parts of your research question.

Step #1: Initial Search

Enter the key concepts from your research question combined with the Boolean operator AND. PubMed does automatically combine your terms with AND. However, it can be easier to modify your search if you start by including the Boolean operators.

migraine AND acupuncture AND tryptamines

The search retrieves a number of relevant article records, but probably not everything on the topic.

Step #2: Evaluate Results

Use the Display Settings drop down in the upper left hand corner of the results page to change to Abstract display.

Review the results and move articles that are directly related to your topic to the Clipboard .

Go to the Clipboard to examine the language in the articles that are directly related to your topic.

• look for words in the titles and abstracts of these pertinent articles that differ from the words you used
• look for relevant MeSH terms in the list linked at the bottom of each article

The following two articles were selected from the search results and placed on the Clipboard.

Here are word differences to consider:

• Initial search used acupuncture. MeSH Terms use Acupuncture therapy.
• Initial search used migraine.  Related word from MeSH Terms is Migraine without Aura and Migraine Disorders.
• Initial search used tryptamines. Article title uses sumatriptan. Related word from MeSH is Sumatriptan or Tryptamines.

With this knowledge you can reformulate your search to expand your retrieval, adding synonyms for all concepts except for manual and plaque.

#3 Revise Search

Use the Boolean OR operator to group synonyms together and use parentheses around the OR groups so they will be searched properly. See the image below to review the difference between Boolean OR / Boolean AND.

Here is what the new search looks like:

(migraine OR migraine disorders) AND (acupuncture OR acupuncture therapy) AND (tryptamines OR sumatriptan)

• Search Worksheet Example: Acupuncture vs. Triptans for Migraine
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What exactly is a Literature Review?

A literature review describes, summarizes and analyzes previously published literature in a field. What you want to do is demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of what the "conversation" about this topic is, identify gaps in the literature, present research pertinent to your ideas and how your research fits in with, changes, elaborates on, etc., the present conversation.

BOOKS - Literature Review and how to write it

BOOKS - Research Methods

Research Methods at a Glance

This information on basic business research methods is in part adapted from the book Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation by Carter McNamara (Call number: HD62.6 .M36). 

Research Methods in General

Research Methods in Public Health

• The Literature Review: A Research Journey This guide from the Harvard School of Education is an introduction to the basics of conducting a literature review.

• How to cite effectively and improve readability of your paper?

Improve your writing

The Academic Phrasebank is a general resource for academic writers. It aims to provide you with examples of some of the phraseological ‘nuts and bolts’ of writing organized according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation:

• Introducing work  - e.g Evidence suggests that X is among the most important factors for …
• Referring to sources  - e.g. A number of authors have considered the effects of … (Smith, 2003; Jones, 2004).
• Describing methods - e.g. Different methods have been proposed to classify … (Johnson, 2021; Petersen, 2019; Appel, 2017).
• Reporting results - e.g. Interestingly, the X was observed to …
• Discussing findings  - e.g. A strong relationship between X and Y has been reported in the literature.
• Writing conclusions  - e.g. One of the more significant findings to emerge from this study is that …

Additional  examples from Academic Phrasebank are below:

Before explaining these theories, it is necessary to …

In a similar case in America, Smith (2021) identified …

This is exemplified in the work undertaken by Smith (2021) ...

Recent cases reported by Smith  et al . (2021) also support the hypothesis that …

This section has reviewed the three key aspects of …

In summary, it has been shown from this review that …

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Literature review

What is the purpose of a literature review.

A literature review provides a comprehensive and up to date overview of current research on a topic, containing the most relevant studies and pointing to important past and current research and practices in a field.

Writing a good literature review requires careful planning, a clear structure, analytical thinking, good literature searching skills, and the ability to synthesise and summarise information in a clear writing style.

A literature review can:

• Provide a thorough knowledge of previous studies
• Introduce important works and focus your research topic within the broader context
• Help you to see how new research is like building blocks, laid upon the ideas built by others, and appreciate the sequence and growth of knowledge
• Identify gaps in the research for future investigation
• Help you to avoid repetition of earlier research
• Identify controversy in the literature
• Focus your own research topic within the broader context.

Get started

• Think of the main concepts relating to your research question
• Determine the scope of your literature search and review
• The extent of literature retrieved will indicate the level of research conducted in your area of study. Is this a new area of research?
• Consider how far back you search, are there theoretical works that must be included?
• Ensure you also look at the most current research

Finding the literature

The Library can provide expert help in finding, evaluating, using and referencing resources for your assessments and research.

• Health Expert Help Guides Use these guides to find relevant resources for your assessments.
• Library support Contact the library via Chat, phone or email.

Academic writing skills

• Pathfinder Pathfinder helps students to further develop their academic writing and other study skills. You can go prepared with specific questions, or ask for feedback on your drafts. Pathfinder staff can advise on structure, formality, clarity, language etc. They cannot edit your work or advise on content.
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• Journals, databases and critical thinking

What is a literature review?

Choosing a topic, developing your search strategy, carrying out your search, saving and documenting your search, formulating a research question, critical appraisal tools.

• Go to LibrarySearch This link opens in a new window

So you have been asked to complete a literature review, but what is a literature review?

A literature review is a piece of research which aims to address a specific research question. It is a comprehensive summary and analysis of existing literature. The literature itself should be the main topic of discussion in your review. You want the results and themes to speak for themselves to avoid any bias.

The first step is to decide on a topic. Here are some elements to consider when deciding upon a topic:

• Choose a topic which you are interested in, you will be looking at a lot of research surrounding that area so you want to ensure it is something that interests you. 
• Draw on your own experiences, think about your placement or your workplace.
• Think about why the topic is worth investigating.  

Once you have decided on a topic, it is a good practice to carry out an initial scoping search.

This requires you to do a quick search using  LibrarySearch  or  Google Scholar  to ensure that there is research on your topic. This is a preliminary step to your search to check what literature is available before deciding on your question. 

The research question framework elements can also be used as keywords.

• Think about who the population/ sample group. Are you looking for a particular age group, ethnicity, cultural background, gender, health issue etc.
• What is the intervention/issue you want to know more about? This could be a particular type of medication, education, therapeutic technique etc. 
• Do you have a particular context in mind? This could relate to a community setting, hospital, ward etc. 

It is important to remember that databases will only ever search for the exact term you put in, so don't panic if you are not getting the results you hoped for. Think about alternative words that could be used for each keyword to build upon your search. 

Build your search by thinking about about synonyms, specialist language, spellings, acronyms, abbreviations for each keyword that you have.

Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria

Your inclusion and exclusion criteria is also an important step in the literature review process. It allows you to be transparent in how you have  ended up with your final articles. 

Your inclusion/exclusion criteria is completely dependent on your chosen topic. Use your inclusion and exclusion criteria to select your articles, it is important not to cherry pick but to have a reason as to why you have selected that particular article. 

• Search Planning Template Use this template to plan your search strategy.

Once you have thought about your keywords and alternative keywords, it is time to think about how to combine them to form your search strategy. Boolean operators instruct the database how your terms should interact with one another. 

Boolean Operators

• OR can be used to combine your keywords and alternative terms. For example "Social Media OR Twitter". When using OR we are informing the database to bring articles continuing either of those terms as they are both relevant so we don't mind which appears in our article. 
• AND can be used to combine two or more concepts. For example "Social Media AND Anxiety". When using AND we are informing the database that we need both of the terms in our article in order for it to be relevant.
• Truncation can be used when there are multiple possible word endings. For example Nurs* will find Nurse, Nurses and Nursing. 
• Double quotation marks can be used to allow for phrase searching. This means that if you have two or more words that belong together as a phrase the database will search for that exact phrase rather than words separately.  For example "Social Media"

Don't forget the more ORs you use the broader your search becomes, the more ANDs you use the narrower your search becomes. 

One of the databases you will be using is EBSCOHost Research Databases. This is a platform which searches through multiple databases so allows for a comprehensive search. The short video below covers how to access and use EBSCO. 

A reference management software will save you a lot of time especially when you are looking at lots of different articles. 

We provide support for EndNote and Mendeley. The video below covers how to install and use Mendeley. 

Consider using a research question framework. A framework will ensure that your question is specific and answerable.

There are different frameworks available depending on what type of research you are interested in.

Population - Who is the question focussed on? This could relate to staff, patients, an age group, an ethnicity etc.

Intervention - What is the question focussed on? This could be a certain type of medication, therapeutic technique etc. 

Comparison/Context - This may be with our without the intervention or it may be concerned with the context for example where is the setting of your question? The hospital, ward, community etc?

Outcome - What do you hope to accomplish or improve etc.

Sample - as this is qualitative research sample is preferred over patient so that it is not generalised. 

Phenomenon of Interest - reasons for behaviour, attitudes, beliefs and decisions.

Design - the form of research used. 

Evaluation - the outcomes.

Research type -qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods.  

All frameworks help you to be specific, but don't worry if your question doesn't fit exactly into a framework. 

There are many critical appraisal tools or books you can use to assess the credibility of a research paper but these are a few we would recommend in the library. Your tutor may be able to advise you of others or some that are more suitable for your topic.

Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP)

CASP is a well-known critical appraisal website that has checklists for a wide variety of study types. You will see it frequently used by practitioners.

Understanding Health Research

This is a brand-new, interactive resource that guides you through appraising a research paper, highlighting key areas you should consider when appraising evidence.

Greenhalgh, T. (2014) How to read a paper: The basics of evidence-based medicine . 5 th edn. Chichester: Wiley

Greenhalgh’s book is a classic in critical appraisal. Whilst you don’t need to read this book cover-to-cover, it can be useful to refer to its specific chapters on how to assess different types of research papers. We have copies available in the library!

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Sample Lit Reviews from Communication Arts

Have an exemplary literature review.

• Literature Review Sample 1
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Have you written a stellar literature review you care to share for teaching purposes?

Are you an instructor who has received an exemplary literature review and have permission from the student to post?

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• Open access
• Published: 26 June 2024

Understanding the contexts in which female sex workers sell sex in Kampala, Uganda: a qualitative study

• Kenneth Roger Katumba 1 , 2 ,
• Mercy Haumba 1 ,
• Yunia Mayanja 1 , 2 ,
• Yvonne Wangui Machira 3 ,
• Mitzy Gafos 2 ,
• Matthew Quaife 2 ,
• Janet Seeley 2 &
• Giulia Greco 2  

BMC Women's Health volume  24 , Article number:  371 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

496 Accesses

4 Altmetric

Metrics details

Structural, interpersonal and individual level factors can present barriers for HIV prevention behaviour among people at high risk of HIV acquisition, including women who sell sex. In this paper we document the contexts in which women selling sex in Kampala meet and provide services to their clients.

We collected qualitative data using semi-structured interviews. Women were eligible to participate if they were 18 years or older, self-identified as sex workers or offered sex for money and spoke Luganda or English. Ten women who met clients in venues and outdoor locations were selected randomly from a clinic for women at high risk of HIV acquisition. Ten other women who met clients online were recruited using snowball sampling. Interviews included demographic data, and themes included reasons for joining and leaving sex work, work locations, nature of relationships with clients and peers, interaction with authorities, regulations on sex work, and reported stigma. We conducted interviews over three months. Data were analysed thematically using a framework analysis approach. The coding framework was based on structural factors identified from literature, but also modified inductively with themes arising from the interviews.

Women met clients in physical and virtual spaces. Physical spaces included venues and outdoor locations, and virtual spaces were online platforms like social media applications and websites. Of the 20 women included, 12 used online platforms to meet clients. Generally, women from the clinic sample were less educated and predominantly unmarried, while those from the snowball sample had more education, had professional jobs, or were university students. Women from both samples reported experiences of stigma, violence from clients and authorities, and challenges accessing health care services due to the illegality of sex work. Even though all participants worked in settings where sex work was illegal and consequently endured harsh treatment, those from the snowball sample faced additional threats of cybersecurity attacks, extortion from clients, and high levels of violence from clients.

Conclusions

To reduce risk of HIV acquisition among women who sell sex, researchers and implementers should consider these differences in contexts, challenges, and risks to design innovative interventions and programs that reach and include all women.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Globally women who sell sex face a disproportionately large risk of HIV acquisition compared to the general population [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Among those at greatest risk are female sex workers (FSWs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) who are 13.5 times more likely to acquire HIV relative to the general population [ 3 , 4 ]. Research indicates that structural, interpersonal, and individual factors influence HIV prevention behaviour [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Structural factors are defined as the economic, social, political, organizational or other aspects of the environment in which women sell sex, and which might act as barriers to or facilitators of women’s HIV prevention behaviour [ 7 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ]. Interpersonal factors are those which relate to risks or protective factors between women and their clients, or intimate partners [ 2 , 15 ]. Individual factors are those which relate to a woman’s individual attributes such as age of initiation into sex work, alcohol and other substance use, knowledge of HIV prevention, physical, and psychological attributes [ 6 , 15 ]. Together, the structural and interpersonal factors influence the contexts in which women who sell sex work. Several structural and interpersonal factors that influence condom use among sex workers have been identified, including zoning restrictions and regulation of sex work, how women join sex work, the location where sex workers meet and provide services to clients, experiences of violent relationships with clients, and harassment by authorities and police [ 7 ]. Stigma has also been identified as an important influence on the way sex workers work and as a contributor to their risk environment. Stigma increases the risk of HIV acquisition to sex workers, yet it is experienced in several forms at the individual, interpersonal and structural levels [ 14 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ].

In Uganda, sex work is illegal and criminalised. Research that investigated the contexts in which women in Kampala sell sex has however shown that women join commercial sex work because of their disadvantaged backgrounds and restricted access to economic resources [ 11 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. Mbonye et al. [ 11 ] showed that women providing services in outdoor locations like streets, alleys and parking lots faced more challenges than women providing services in indoor locations like nightclubs, bars, and lodges. These challenges included exposure to violence, stigma from the public, and visibility to police [ 11 , 23 ]. Kawuma et al. [ 20 ]reported in a more recent study that the places in which women sell sex in Kampala are fluid in that they move from one type of venue to another. All these studies also showed that women selling sex in Kampala faced violent relationships with both the police/authorities and with their clients [ 11 , 20 , 21 ].

It is however noteworthy that women included in these studies were participants from large epidemiological cohorts that recruited participants from low socio-economic settings, with little or no education, and who typically recruited their clients in physical locations, indoor or outdoor [ 11 , 23 ]. Women outside of these cohort settings, who have higher education, belong to higher socioeconomic status, and meet clients in spaces other than those identified in these studies have not been included in important HIV research, programming, and prevention efforts in Uganda to date. Research in the United Kingdom, USA, Australia, Japan, and India has reported the experiences of women who sell sex using internet websites and social media platforms [ 24 , 25 , 26 ]. These women also face risks, violence, and crime just like their peers who meet clients in physical locations like venues and streets [ 24 , 27 ]. Understanding the contexts in which women sell sex and the strategies that they use to advertise, meet, and provide services to their clients will help us to understand HIV risk among women by highlighting how structural, interpersonal, and individual factors interact to influence HIV transmission. In Kampala, earlier studies have reported on the contexts in which women recruiting and providing services in physical locations work, but there is still a gap in knowledge about the prevalence of client recruitment using online platforms, how women who recruit this way are organised, and how this strategy affects their risk of HIV acquisition. Understanding these gaps will improve our understanding of the structural determinants framework for HIV prevention among women selling sex in Kampala. This paper presents a more comprehensive understanding of the contexts in which women sell sex in Kampala by including women who have not been included in prior research studies and emphasizes the need to reach them and target intervention efforts to them. This aligns with the UNAIDS strategy of leaving no one behind and reaching the populations at the greatest need of care [ 28 ].

Study design, participants, and process

Twenty women from Kampala and surrounding suburbs were included in the study, using two sampling strategies. The first sample – the clinic sample – included 10 women sampled from a cohort of 4500 women who had been attending a clinic dedicated to women at risk of HIV acquisition including FSWs run by the Medical Research Council/ Uganda Virus Research Institute and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (MRC/UVRI & LSHTM) Uganda Research Unit in Kampala [ 23 ]. Women who met clients in physical spaces like venues and outdoor locations had prior been recruited into the clinic through peers. The second sample – the snowball sample – included 10 women who met clients using online platforms including social media and websites such as Instagram. We identified one key informant who started the snowball recruitment as described by Heckathorn [ 29 ] and Rao et al. [ 30 ]. Women were eligible to participate if they were 18 years or older, self-identified as sex workers or offered sex for money and spoke Luganda or English. In our study, “women who meet clients” includes women actively recruiting clients, women searched out by clients, and women who are introduced to clients by peers, but meet using online spaces.

Data collection and management

An experienced female graduate social scientist (MH) made first contact with all women, planned interview appointments, administered the study information and consent process, and carried out in-depth interviews with them. For the clinic sample, we selected women from the cohort using a random number generator in Microsoft Excel to generate 10 random numbers within the range of 1 and 4,500 inclusive, which matched the women’s unique cohort identifiers. We invited women with the corresponding numbers to participate. To identify the seed for the snowball sample, the female social scientist (MH) used the Instagram search function to search through posts of women who offered mobile (in-house) massage services or sex for money. She used the keyword “massage” and the location filter set to “Kampala”. The results included both personal accounts and accounts for massage parlors. We considered the first personal account that appeared on the search results as the potential seed for our sample. The female social scientist (MH) contacted the first personal account via the Instagram chat function, providing information about the opportunity to participate in a research study. The owner of the personal account agreed to take part in the study. After her interview, the seed identified through Instagram identified other women and provided their contacts. The female social scientist (MH) then invited the potential participants to the study, and the snowball continued until 10 interviews were completed. We allocated participant numbers from A01 to A10 for those in the snowball sample, and B01 to B10 for those in the clinic sample. Interviews were carried out between September and October 2022.

We developed the interview guide from a literature review of the structural factors that influence HIV prevention for women who sell sex, and a review by Shannon et al. [ 6 ], which presented a framework for the structural drivers of HIV and the pathways through which they interact with interpersonal and individual behavioural factors. This framework expanded structural factors to include macro-structural factors such as legal, socio-political, cultural, economic, and geographic contexts in which women sell sex, sex work organisation which includes the organisational structure, community empowerment and collectivisation of sex work, and the work environment which includes the physical, social, economic and political features of the environments in which sex workers operate, such as violence, access to condoms and anti-retroviral therapy (ART), and venue policies [ 6 ]. Using this framework, we developed this guide specifically for this study, and included questions on how women joined and why they would leave sex work, how their work was organised including recruitment and where they provided services to clients, their relationships with clients and authorities, the illegality of sex work, and the stigma they experienced. A copy of this interview guide is included as an additional file (see Additional file 1). We collected basic demographics at the beginning of the interview, asking women about their age, number of children, level of education, if sex work was the main occupation, and if they used social media to meet men for sex work. These were summarised in MS Excel, and the corresponding frequencies presented as descriptive statistics. Recruitment logs with personal information were stored in a secure access-controlled cabinet separate from where interview notes, recorders and computers were kept. After obtaining informed consent from the participants, we audio-recorded interviews, then transcribed and translated them into English. The social scientist (MH) took notes to back up the recordings. We imported the transcripts, translations, and interviewer notes into NVivo 12 for data organisation and management.

Data analysis

We used framework analysis as outlined by Gale et al. [ 31 ] to analyse the qualitative data. This analytical approach involves developing a thematic structure for interpretation, under which individual codes can be grouped and compared [ 31 ].

A study team member checked five random transcripts in English for transcription accuracy, and all the 10 Luganda transcripts for translation accuracy. In the first step of the coding, both the first author and the social scientist (MH) coded four interviews independently using initial frameworks constructed both deductively using the review by Shannon et al. (2015) and inductively using themes arising from the interviews [ 3 ]. The two coders then met and consolidated their coding frameworks into a revised version, which the first author used to finalise coding of all the interviews. From the consolidated coding framework, we developed a framework matrix with the themes and subthemes as the columns, and the participants as the rows. We populated the cells of the matrix with both summaries and representative quotes from the data. We then analysed the data from each of the columns to generate analytical memos on prominent themes arising from the data. All the steps of the analysis were reviewed by two other co-authors.

Ethical considerations

This study was approved by the Uganda Virus Research Institute Research and Ethics Committee (GC/127/912), the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (HS2386ES), and the ethics committee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (28,175). We obtained written informed consent from all the respondents before data collection. We compensated the participants 20,000 Uganda shillings (UGX), (USD 5.5) for their time, and 20,000 UGX (USD 5.5) for their transport. We did not offer current participants any incentive to refer seeds and informed them that they would not face any penalties whatsoever if they did not refer any seeds. To contact new participants for the snowball sample, the qualitative researcher was provided with a partial name and a contact number, or with the new participant’s Instagram handle. The identity of the referring participant was not disclosed to new participants. The referring participant was not told which of the potential participants suggested by her eventually participated in the study. A copy of the script we used is included as an additional file (see Additional file 2).

Women in our study

Twenty women participated in the study, 10 in each of the clinic and snowball samples. Of the 20 included women, 12 met clients using online platforms. Of these 12, nine were from the snowball sample and three were from the clinic sample. We reached out to 26 women for inclusion in the snowball sample, eight of whom opted not to participate, six did not come for their appointments, and two did not respond. In the clinic sample, only one of the 10 women was not reachable and was replaced. While women from the clinic sample generally had less schooling and were predominantly unmarried, women from the snowball sample generally had high levels of education, had professional jobs or were students in training for professional jobs, were able to negotiate better prices for sex, and were able to avoid outdoor confrontation with police, authorities, and the public. Table  1 below gives details of women’s individual characteristics.

The contexts in which women sold sex

The prominent themes we identified in our study included: how the women organised their work, why and how they joined or would leave sex work, the relationships that they had with clients, authorities, family, and their peers, and the stigma they experienced. We present them in Table  2 below and explain them in detail in the sections that follow.

Reasons women joined sex work, and why they would leave

Women mentioned economic need as the main reason for joining sex work, and this was driven by the loss of parents, abandonment by partners, economic hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic, inability to continue school due to lack of school fees, and costs like rent and food.

I joined sex work because of the hardship I was going through after my husband abandoned me and the children, he was not paying their school dues, and they had nothing to eat. So, I decided to devise means of survival. (Clinic sample, 23–25 years, B04).

Women remained in sex work because of economic responsibilities and no alternative sources of comparable income. For women who met clients in public spaces, these responsibilities included costs such as rent, school fees and food for themselves and their families. For women who met clients using online spaces, responsibilities included special costs such as maintaining their lifestyle and good aesthetics both on online platforms and the social scene. They included rent for expensive apartments, hairstyles, makeup, expensive clothing and phones, trips outside Kampala and Uganda, and keeping up appearances on the Kampala party scene.

At this point as much as the money you get from sex work is little if I decide to leave, I won’t be able to sustain myself or even be able to start another business since I will not have money. The situation is bad these days, so if I leave sex work, which other job am I going to do? (Clinic sample, 23–25 years, B04). The money that it comes with is not little money. This is like salaries that people get for months, and I am doing it for just one day. So, it becomes addictive, and you must keep up with the lifestyle that you have started so you must keep going back until you are somewhere that you want to be. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A04).

While all participants mentioned economic need as reason for joining or staying in sex work, some women joined sex work because of trauma from being abused as children. The pain that they harboured from this trauma kept them in sex work, even if they were not proud of their work. Regardless of how they joined sex work or where they met their clients, most women would leave sex work if they had major changes in their social or financial status, for example if they got married, achieved financial stability through stable alternative and comparable sources of income, or having a home that they own.

Oh well yeah one day I want to have a family settle down and have a husband and have kids so definitely there is no way I can be married to someone when I am still doing this kind of work. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A04).

How female sex work in Kampala was organised

Where women met clients and provided services.

Women discussed recruiting clients in public physical spaces, in private virtual online spaces, and through go-betweens. The public spaces were both outdoor and indoor. Outdoor public spaces included streets, alleys, and markets, while indoor public spaces included venues such as bars, pubs, cafés, offices, churches, malls, casinos, hotels, restaurants, massage parlours and lodges. Women also discussed the lack of privacy and the higher risks of police prosecution and arrests, attacks by thugs, robbery, and exposure to judgement by the society, in addition to meteorological challenges like cold, windy, and rainy weather.

The person who took me on the streets [a female friend], one time we were on the street and her [the friend’s] uncle was the one haggling with her. (Laughs). Those are the things that make us leave the streets. At least you go to [the clients’] places or at our [the woman’s] place it has no problem. (Clinic sample, > 30 years, B02).

Women discussed benefiting from security offered by the management of indoor public spaces, even if in some cases they were charged a fee to be allowed to work at these places.

The street is not good but at the bar they first check clients before entering, they do not allow them to enter with keys, knives and other things which is not done on streets. That is why you see that many people who work from streets die a lot, that is why the street near [a pub nearby] many people die from there…For the places, I told you like [a specific pub], it is safe, even if a client becomes chaotic, we are protected by the guards at the bars. (Clinic sample, > 30 years, B03.

The private virtual spaces mentioned by women were online platforms that can be accessed from their homes, or other private and protected places. They included social media applications (apps) and sites such as Snapchat, Instagram, Badoo, and dating websites. Women who met clients using these spaces were able to reach many clients, had more time between the first contact with a client and accepting to offer services to the client. This time allowed them to make decisions both about their perceived safety with clients and avoid potential violent clients, but also about HIV prevention. They earned more than their peers who met clients in public spaces, and they provided services mostly in hotels, in the clients’ homes, and sometimes in their homes.

The advantage of hotels is that you can easily get help in case of any problems, which you can’t get when you are in someone’s home because its already night and some people’s homes are fenced even if you shout no one can help. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A07). Well, the truth is there is a lot going on, on social media. When you get offers, it is up to you to take them or not. Social media things are so easy now. You can meet people; you can easily associate with people from different parts of the world. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A02).

Women who met clients in virtual spaces faced some challenges particular to their strategy of recruiting clients, for example cyber threats and their online accounts being hacked into, new clients who did not want to pay being extorting money from them, and old clients who traded women’s confidentiality for money.

Because I had so many people writing to me. They wanted to meet me. So, I felt like Instagram wasn’t a safe place for me. And by then people used to hack into accounts. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A01).

Some women relied on pimps or peers who acted as go-betweens procuring clients for them. These women were assured of a reliable flow of clients from middle and high socio-economic status; and of more security since the go-between knew which woman was with which client, and at what location. However, they were prone to exploitation since the go-between usually took a commission off the women’s pay, while some protected violent clients.

Well, first there are what they call pimps who usually have contacts of men. Some are like delegates who come to Uganda, or who want to take girls outside for meetings outside of Uganda. These pimps are always looking for sex workers you don’t even have to look for them. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A04).

As much as some women used only private online spaces, others had a primary space where they usually met clients, and one ‘filler’ space they would resort to in case they didn’t have enough clients from their primary space. For example, women from the clinic sample mostly relied on online spaces during day, but used go-between or went out to clubs and bars in the night. On the other hand, women from the clinic sample relied heavily on physical spaces to recruit their clients.

During the day you can be on your phone, but you must go to clubs at night. If you are in another country, you can’t just stay in the house and chat on phone, you must go outside and look for clients if you need money. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A07).

Women who met clients using online platforms provided services in indoor spaces like their own and clients’ homes, and in hotels, but never mentioned offering services in public outdoor spaces. On the other hand, women who met clients in public outdoor spaces like streets provided services in indoor spaces, but also in the outdoor spaces where they met the clients.

How women competed for clients

Women who met their clients in public spaces viewed their counterparts who met clients using online platforms to be in a higher income and of a higher socio-economic status. The latter women discussed that the former operated a more versatile, more mobile, and less exposing form of sex work which was able to attract a clientele of higher socio-economic status and higher paying. Among women who met clients in physical spaces, women who met clients using online platforms were referred to as bikapu (plural for kikapu ) sex workers. A kikapu is a large travel or shopping basket that can be carried anywhere at any time, and whose contents are known only to the owner.

There are sex workers whom you will never see seated in corridors waiting for clients or even see clients entering her house. But she is also at her home doing sex work. If a client calls her, she goes, services the client, and returns to her house. They are always called ‘bikapu’ sex workers. (Clinic sample, 25–30 years, B05).

The prices women charged, and how they negotiated with clients

It was clear from the interviews that women who met clients using online spaces charged more than women who met clients in public spaces. Among women who met clients in public spaces, the highest amount received for a sexual act was 100,000 UGX (USD 27), compared to 40,000,000 UGX (USD 10,767) for those who met clients using online spaces. The latter had a minimum reserve price of 250,000 UGX (USD 67), compared to no payment or providing sex on credit among the former. Moreover, those recruiting online had more time to negotiate prices and compare offers from clients before meeting clients physically, compared to the former, who usually negotiated with one client at a time and when they had already met physically.

I can even get 8 million shillings. The lowest I get in a month is 5,000,000 shillings [USD 1,356] but it’s usually between 8 and 15 million shillings [USD 2,170–4,069]. When people who live abroad are around in large numbers, I can get up to 15,000,000 UGX [USD 4,069]. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A06). There are those sex workers who cannot come to my place where I work, but they meet their clients using the internet and somehow charge more expensively than me. I cannot compete with them; I am cheaper because I charge from 5,000 UGX [USD 1.40] but those sex workers charge from 100,000 [USD 28] or 200,000 UGX [USD 54]. (clinic sample, > 30 years, B03). You can get a customer who runs away after getting the service as agreed. That is what they call ‘bidding farewell with a zip’ (okusibuza zip). It depends, there is when we work tirelessly and you get 30,000–50,000 shillings [USD 8.20–13.60] monthly, and between two to three thousand (54–81 cents) daily. (Clinic sample, 25–30 years, B01).

Moreover, women who met clients using online spaces discussed being offered substantial non-financial incentives in addition to cash payment. In most cases, these incentives, which included gifts and trips within and outside Uganda, supplemented the cash payment clients offered and influenced women’s decision to reconsider some clients that had been rejected because the initial payment offer was deemed unattractive.

The relationships women had with authorities, clients, and peers

Women faced violence from clients in form of physical, verbal, and sexual abuse such as rape, clients removing or tearing condoms intentionally, and even death threats.

For me a man almost killed me. We went into a room, and I told him the amount of money I wanted. He said he did not have it. I told him to let me get out, but he started strangling me. Then I accepted that he had robbed me. (Clinic sample, > 30 years, B02). Ah God (covers her face with her palms and shakes her head) it was so hard for me. He slapped me, did everything you can think of. My dear, I gave up and had to act soft because some clients need you to be submissive. So, you must act like you are enjoying whatever he wanted. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A06).

However, some women met friendly and supportive clients who treated them well, got them business connections and supported them financially in their personal lives.

I will not lie to you; he was taking care of me just like any other man takes care of what he loves. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A01). Women’s relationships with peers were usually characterised by jealousy, mistrust, hatred, and threats. They fought with each other verbally, physically, and spiritually with witchcraft. That said, there was evidence of friendships among women who met clients in physical spaces. For example, they could demand their peers’ release if they witnessed their arrest. First, a massage parlour has a lot of girls. So, there is that hatred that comes along. Then there is a risk of being bewitched by those girls at the parlour. (Snowball sample, 23–25 years, A08). Yes, there are sex workers who compete against each other. I don’t know how to explain this but sometimes your fellow sex workers might notice that you are getting a lot of customers then they go and bewitch you. (Clinic sample, 23–25 years, B04).

Women who met using online spaces worked in isolation and were in many cases not able to get help in cases where clients turned violent. And because sex work is illegal in Uganda, women had no legal support or protection from authorities. Instead, they were exploited sexually and financially by the authorities, abused, and violated. All our participants faced some form of violence, abuse and exploitation from police and authorities.

We are treated badly. Police officers also come and arrest you and sometimes even rape you. Sometimes when they arrest you and you don’t have money to give, they force you to have sex. (Clinic sample, 23–25 years, B04. They all want sex (laughs). The truth is I don’t want to say everybody is bad among authorities but it’s like they all want to get something [sex]. Of course, I don’t give them, but I am sure there are people who do. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A02).

Authorities only offered protection when they got sexual favours from women, and when women paid regular fees to them. Women working in private indoor spaces like pubs discussed being protected from clients that turned violent, by private guards stationed at these indoor spaces.

Women who met clients in physical spaces were more affected by the illegality of sex work compared to their peers who met clients using online platforms. The former discussed restrictions on the areas or times when they could work, being exposed to arrest by authorities, and public shame and ridicule. The latter women discussed not knowing any laws against sex work, and their work not being hindered in by any regulations. However, majority of the women discussed not being able to report to authorities or disclose to friends and family in cases where they had been raped, for fear of prosecution, ridicule, and stigmatisation.

Women’s experiences of stigma

Our participants experienced internalised stigma where they felt like disappointments to their families, and unworthy of some things or levels of achievement in life, such as good loving relationships respect, and leadership positions in society. Some women thought they would only be able to fit in society if they left sex work. Otherwise, they had to live with persistent guilt, shame, and embarrassment from doing sex work, and consequently keeping their work secret from friends, family, and society.

Then there is also that persistent guilt of letting down your family and them expecting better. I don’t know but it’s embarrassing, how do you even start telling someone that you are getting money from having sex with multiple people not even one. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A07).

Women experienced stigma when they were shunned by their family and friends, health workers, local leaders, and the communities in which they live and work. They were pushed to operate in secrecy because they feared the stigma they would face if exposed. Women who met clients in public outdoor spaces like streets were most affected because they were more exposed to the public while working, and to arrests by authorities.

Banvuma [They insulted me]. I remember my mum told me I decided to go out and embarrass the family, yet they have degrees and masters. It was really bad. I never got invited to any family function. Ever since then I became a reject, and you know you can tell when you are rejected by how people look at and talk to you. (Snowball sample, 25–30 years, A01). Yes, from the neighbours one of them can see you or in a way find out that you do sex work. Then she comes and tells another person that you are a sex worker. Then they spend the whole day gossiping about you. (Clinic sample, 25–30 years, B05).

Women discussed not being able to get licences since their work is illegal, and not being able to report in cases where clients violated them. They were exposed to discrimination because they had no legal or structural backing for them to work or to be protected against violence, attacks, and exploitation.

We present the contexts in which women selling sex in Kampala met and provided services to their clients. Our participants met clients in physical spaces including venues and outdoor locations and using online spaces that included social media applications and websites. Earlier studies also found that women who sell sex in Kampala recruit clients in venues and outdoor locations like those we presented [ 11 , 17 ]. Our study goes a step further and highlights that some women met clients using virtual online spaces like social media platforms and websites. While this finding is new to literature on Uganda, it is consistent with studies carried out in other settings, where sex workers recruiting clients using online platforms like social media and websites were identified [ 24 , 25 , 27 ]. similarly to their peers who recruit clients from physical spaces, women who recruit clients using online platforms are also high-risk population, yet they have not been targeted in HIV prevention efforts. There is need for inclusion of women who recruit clients using online platforms in HIV prevention interventions.

We assert that women selling sex in Kampala work in settings where sex work is illegal and criminalised, and because of this they are forced to endure harsh treatment; they face violent and abusive clients; they are arrested, abused, and exploited by authorities; and they experience jealousy and violence from their peers, and stigma from society. It is known that sex work is illegal in Uganda, that women who sell sex have violent relationships with both clients and authorities, and that women selling sex get no legal protection [ 17 , 21 ]. Our findings are consistent with other studies in this respect. We go further and highlight the larger extent to which the illegality of sex work was felt by women who met clients in physical spaces compared to those who met clients using online platforms. This stresses the continued need for support to women who face violent relationships, and to create safe spaces for women selling sex.

We also show that women who met clients using online platforms had more time to engage and negotiate with the clients before meeting them physically, were able to generate a pool of potential clients and consequently had less pressure to find clients. These women also seemed to have better education and income compared to their peers who met clients in physical spaces. Despite these apparent individual level advantages, we show that in many ways women selling sex faced similar pressures at the structural and interpersonal levels and faced similar risks with regards to HIV acquisition.

All our participants faced challenges that are similar and consistent with those identified in earlier studies [ 11 , 17 , 20 , 21 , 23 ]. These challenges were sustained by gaps in structural, social, and interpersonal support with regards to HIV prevention. For example, all study participants were either unable or unwilling to obtain support from authorities in situations where they were abused, exploited, or violated by clients or authorities. Women who met clients using online platforms faced some challenges specific to them because of their client recruitment strategy. First, they had to deal with cybersecurity threats like their social media accounts being hacked into and being exposed on the online platforms where they met clients. The damage caused by such negative exposure would be amplified by information on these platforms being easily and affordably accessible to very many people simultaneously. Secondly, they were threatened with exposure and reputational harm by clients who did not want to pay for services. This further increased their already high costs of operation. In terms of risk, most women who met clients using online platforms were unable to get immediate help in case a client turned violent because they mostly provided services to clients in their homes (both the clients’ and women’s) and in hotels. These women were exposed to high levels of violence that was potentially fatal from clients, and yet they did not readily access the needed services because they were pushed to operate in secrecy due to fear of stigma, judgement, and prosecution. This was exacerbated by the fact that they were mostly university graduates with professional jobs and were therefore very secretive and protective of their involvement in selling sex. Women’s experiences of stigma were consistent with what has been found in the literature (Beattie et al., 2023; Cruz, 2015; Fitzgerald-Husek et al., 2017; Ruegsegger et al., 2021; Seeley et al., 2012). It is still interesting to note that our participants across the samples faced stigma in similar ways and that most were ashamed of their work. Even women who met clients using online platforms were unable to report clients because they feared the prosecution by authorities or judgement by society that would come with being exposed. Provision of safe structural and social environments that support and protect women who sell sex as they carry out their work is necessary. Additionally, interventions to reduce stigma for women who sell sex are still very important but should target the more secretive and protective women who recruit clients using online platforms.

While access to health care for women who sell sex has improved over the years, these improvements in access have been identified among women who sell sex and have been included in research studies. This includes women in the clinic sample of our study, who mostly meet clients in physical spaces. Access to health care and HIV prevention services for women who meet clients using online platforms has not been systematically recorded. Yet, our results show that women who meet clients using online platforms face similar and even more challenges than their peers who meet clients in physical spaces. While the common challenges that all women face, including stigma and violence are barriers to health care access [ 32 , 33 , 34 ], the additional challenges that women who meet clients using online platforms face could be additional barriers for access to health care. This calls for continued efforts to address the common challenges but also highlights the need for specific interventions to improve access to health care among women who meet clients using online platforms. Our findings on how women joined sex work or would leave are consistent with published literature. Earlier research showed that women joined due to economic need, or because of earlier traumatic experiences of sexual abuse, and they would leave if they achieved economic stability [ 16 , 21 , 35 ]. This further highlights the importance of continued efforts to empower all women, and protect them from sexual violence, regardless of their level of education, status of work, and where they recruit or provide services to their clients.

Women who met clients using online platforms were hard to reach for us as a research team, and we assume that it will be hard for other researchers, health service providers and policy to reach them effectively. In fact, most women who we contacted to be part of the snowball sample (16 of 26) did not participate in the study, and those who accepted did so with caution. The spaces in which our participants provided services were identical to those reported in the literature, i.e., in indoor venues and outdoor locations [ 11 , 17 , 20 ]. We however highlight the fact that women who met clients using online spaces always provided services in indoor spaces and never in public outdoor spaces. Intervention efforts that target women recruiting clients in venues and in outdoor spaces will therefore miss women who recruit using online platforms. To increase their access to health care, to support services, and to the HIV prevention services they need, research and policy makers need to generate innovative strategies that will reach and engage women recruiting clients using online platforms.

Strengths and limitations

We used the framework analysis method. This method can neither handle highly heterogeneous data nor pay attention to the language of the respondents and how it is used [ 31 ]. We could therefore have missed some heterogeneity in women’s individual, interpersonal, or structural factors because of our choice of data analysis method. Moreover, we based our initial interview guide and coding framework on structural factors identified in the literature. Even though we used some inductive coding to complement the initial deductive framework, results from a similar study using a fully inductive approach would make an interesting comparison. We neither used complex theories nor sought to develop theory derived from the data but used robust framework analysis techniques to generate the major themes related to the structural factors that affect the sexual and reproductive health of women selling sex in Uganda. Despite these limitations, we present important results that could be applicable to women selling sex in Uganda, and other similar settings.

Over half of women in our study met their clients using online platforms and faced additional specific challenges and risks by recruiting their clients using online platforms. Regardless of where they met their clients, our participants worked in environments that exposed them to high risk of acquiring HIV. To reduce risk of HIV acquisition among women who sell sex, researchers and implementers should consider these differences in contexts, challenges, and risks, and design innovative interventions and programs that reach and include all women selling sex in Kampala.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Female Sex Worker

Low and Middle Income Country

Human Immunodeficiency Virus

Anti-Retroviral Therapy

Uganda Shillings

United States Dollars

COrona VIrus Disease of 2019

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all the participants for their time and information, the entire UPTAKE consortium from which this work drew, Rachel Kawuma and Andrew Ssemata for the support on qualitative data analysis, and the MUL study site team for the invaluable support, thank you.

This work was supported by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) [grant number CSA2018HS-2525]. This work was conducted at the MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit which is jointly funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) under the MRC/FCDO Concordat agreement and is also part of the EDCTP2 programme supported by the European Union.

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Kenneth Roger Katumba, Mercy Haumba & Yunia Mayanja

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

Kenneth Roger Katumba, Yunia Mayanja, Mitzy Gafos, Matthew Quaife, Janet Seeley & Giulia Greco

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Contributions

KRK: Conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, project administration, writing - original draft, writing - review & editing. MH: Investigation, writing - review & editing. YM: Funding acquisition, project administration, writing - review & editing. MG: Funding acquisition, supervision, validation, writing - review & editing. YWM: Funding acquisition, writing - review & editing. MQ: Conceptualization, funding acquisition, methodology, supervision, validation, writing - review & editing. JS: Methodology, supervision, validation, writing - review & editing. GG: Conceptualization, methodology, supervision, validation, writing - review & editing. All authors read and approved the final version.

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Correspondence to Kenneth Roger Katumba .

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The study received ethical approvals from the Uganda Virus Research Institute Research Ethics Committee (Ref: GC/127/912), the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (Ref: HS2386ES), and from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Research and Ethics Committee (28175). All women provided written informed consent to participate in this qualitative methods study.

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Katumba, K.R., Haumba, M., Mayanja, Y. et al. Understanding the contexts in which female sex workers sell sex in Kampala, Uganda: a qualitative study. BMC Women's Health 24 , 371 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-024-03216-7

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Received : 26 March 2024

Accepted : 19 June 2024

Published : 26 June 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-024-03216-7

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• Structural factors
• Internet sex work
• Social media
• Risky behaviour

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