Sir,
I read with interest the article “Yakson touch as a part of early intervention in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A systematic narrative review” by Parashar et al. published in the June 2016 issue of the Indian Journal of Critical Care Medicine.[1]
The authors say it is a “systematic narrative review” which in itself is a contradiction. A review can be systematic or narrative but not both.
A systematic review uses preplanned scientific methods to identify, select, critically appraise, and synthesize results from similar but separate studies. Stages of a systematic review are therefore: Formulation of a question, search for relevant data, extraction of data, assessment of the quality of the data, and synthesis. The PICOS framework, i.e., Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcomes, and Study Designs[2] has not been used for defining the review question.[2]
The authors have not described any of these steps in their methodology. Hence, this is a traditional narrative review. Authors should desist from using loosely, terms which have specific and explicit definitions.
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References
- 1.Parashar P, Samuel AJ, Bansal A, Aranka VP. Yakson touch as a part of early intervention in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A systematic narrative review. Indian J Crit Care Med. 2016;20:349–52. doi: 10.4103/0972-5229.183897. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Khan KS, Ter Riet G, Glanville J, Sowden AJ, Kleijnen J. Undertaking Systematic Reviews of Research on Effectiveness: CRD's Guidance for Carrying Out or Commissioning Reviews. York: NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination; 2001. [Google Scholar]