medical Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

, an umbrella review is a review of

systematic reviews A systematic review is a scholarly synthesis of the evidence on a clearly presented topic using critical methods to identify, define and assess research on the topic. A systematic review extracts and interprets data from published studies on t ...

meta-analyses A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analyses can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting me ...

. They may also be called overviews of reviews, reviews of reviews, summaries of systematic reviews, or syntheses of reviews. Umbrella reviews are among the highest

levels of evidence A hierarchy of evidence (or levels of evidence) is a heuristic used to rank the relative strength of results obtained from scientific research. There is broad agreement on the relative strength of large-scale, epidemiological studies. More than 8 ...

currently available in medicine. By summarizing information from multiple overview articles, umbrella reviews make it easier to review the evidence and allow for comparison of results between each of the individual reviews. Umbrella reviews may address a broader question than a typical review, such as discussing multiple different treatment comparisons instead of only one. They are especially useful for developing guidelines and clinical practice, and when comparing competing interventions.

References

Systematic review Evidence-based practices Information science Meta-analysis {{med-stub