Step five - interpreting the findings

The fifth and final step is interpreting the findings.

Types of analysis

Systematic reviews contain analysis of the primary studies. The analysis may be narrative, which could be a structured summary and discussion of the studies' characteristics and findings, or it could be quantitative, involving statistical analysis.

The most commonly used statistical technique is meta-analysis. This is the statistical combination of results from two or more separate studies. This is the subject of another RLO.