Literature review

DEPARTMENT OF OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGICAL NURSING
MRS. NIVETHA G, ASST. P ROF TJ CN
REVIEW
OF
LITERATURE
MRS. NIVETHA M
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
TJCN, BANGALORE

LITERATURE REVIEW
The review of the literature is defined as a
broad, comprehensive, in-depth, systematic, and
critical review of scholarly publications,
unpublished scholarly print materials, audio-visual
materials, and personal communications.

DEFINITION
“A systematic…method for identifying, evaluating and
interpreting the …work produced by researchers, scholars and
practitioners.”
A literature review is a body of text that aims to review
the critical points of knowledge on a particular topic of
research.

IMPORTANCE OF LITERATURE REVIEW:
Identification of a research problem and development or refinement of
research questions.
Determination of any gaps or inconsistencies.
Provides evidence that a selected research problem is of importance.
Discovery of unanswered questions about subjects, concepts or problems.
Development of hypothesis to be tested in a research study.
Helps in planning the methodology of the present research study.
Identification of suitable design and data collection methods for a research
study.
Generation of useful research questions or projects/activities for the
discipline.

PURPOSES OF LITERATURE REVIEW:
 Research problem identification, development or refinement of research questions
 Orientation to what is known and not known about an area of inquiry
 Identify gaps or inconsistencies in a body of research
 Need for replication of a study with a different population
 Identification/development of new/refined clinical interventions to test empirically
 Identification of relevant theoretical/conceptual frameworks for a research problem
 Identification of exerts in the field who could be used as conclusions.
 Identification of designs & data collection methods for a study
 Interpretation of study findings, developing implications & recommendations.

TYPES OF LITERATURE REVIEW:
The literature review may be carried out for different purposes
using different methodologies. Therefore on the basis of purposes and
methodologies, literature review would be broadly classified into
following categories,

TRADITIONAL OR NARRATIVE LITERATURE
REVIEW
SYSTEMIC LITERATURE REVIEW
METAANALYSIS
META SYNTHESIS

TRADITIONAL OR NARRATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW
A narrative or traditional literature review is a comprehensive,
critical and objective analysis of the current knowledge on a topic. They
are an essential part of the research process and help to establish a
theoretical framework and focus or context for your research. A literature
review will help you to identify patterns and trends in the literature so that
you can identify gaps or inconsistencies in a body of knowledge. This
should lead you to a sufficiently focused research question that justifies
your research.

GENERAL LITERATURE REVIEW that provides a review of the
most important and critical aspects of the current knowledge of the topic.
This general literature review forms the introduction to a thesis or
dissertation and must be defined by the research objective, underlying
hypothesis or problem or the reviewer's argumentative thesis.
THEORETICAL LITERATURE REVIEW which examines how
theory shapes or frames research

METHODOLOGICAL LITERATURE REVIEW where the research
methods and design are described. These methodological reviews outline the
strengths and weaknesses of the methods used and provide future direction
HISTORICAL LITERATURE REVIEW which focus on examining
research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an
issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its
evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place
research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art
developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

SYSTEMIC LITERATURE REVIEW
A systematic review is an appraisal and synthesis of primary
research papers using a rigorous and clearly documented methodology in
both the search strategy and the selection of studies. This minimizes bias in
the results. The clear documentation of the process and the decisions made
allow the review to be reproduced and updated.
These types of reviews follow a strict methodology in the selection
of the literature that would be discussed. In other words, the criteria for
including or excluding the literature are transparent. Such reviews are
basically undertaken in order to clarify the state of existing research and the
implications that should be drawn from the same.

METAANALYSIS
Meta-analysis is the statistical procedure for combining
data from multiple studies. When the treatment effect (or effect
size) is consistent from one study to the next, meta-analysis
can be used to identify this common effect. When the effect
varies from one study to the next, meta-analysis may be used
to identify the reason for the variation.

META SYNTHESIS
Contrary to meta-analysis, the meta synthesis is the non-
statistical technique used to integrate, evaluate, and interpret
the findings of multiple qualitative research studies. Findings
from phenomenological, grounded theory studies may be
integrated and used.

SOURCES OF LITERATURE REVIEW:
PRIMARY SOURCES:
The term primary source is used broadly to embody all sources that are
original. Primary sources provide first-hand information that is closest to the
object of study.
Original reports of research found in academic journals detailing the
methodology used in the research, in-depth descriptions, and discussions of the
findings are considered primary sources of information.
Other common examples of primary sources include speeches, letters,
diaries, autobiographies, interviews, official reports, court records, artifacts,
photographs, and drawings.

SECONDARY SOURCES:
A secondary source is a source that provides non-original or second-
hand data or information.
Secondary sources are written about primary sources.
Research summaries reported in textbooks, magazines, and
newspapers are considered secondary sources. They typically provide
global descriptions of results with few details on the methodology. Other
examples of secondary sources include biographies and critical studies of
an author's work.
However, what some define as a secondary source, others define as a
tertiary source. Context is everything.

Examples include:
• Bibliographies (also considered tertiary);
• Biographical works;
• Commentaries, criticisms;
• Dictionaries, Encyclopedias (also considered tertiary);
• Histories;
• Literary criticism such as Journal articles;
• Magazine and newspaper articles;
• Monographs, other than fiction and autobiography;
• Textbooks (also considered tertiary);
• Web site (also considered primary).

TERTIARY SOURCES
Tertiary sources consist of information which is a
distillation and collection of primary and secondary
sources.
Bibliographies (also considered secondary);
Chronologies
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias (also considered secondary)
Directories
Fact books
Guidebooks

STEPS IN LITERATURE REVIEW
UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPTS OF RESEARCH PROBLEM
AND IDENTIFYING THE KEY SEARCH TERMS
The journey of literature search begins with understanding and
examining the concepts of research problem so that essential key search
terms may be identifies. The key search terms serve as foundation for
the overall search of literature.

IDENTIFYING THE RELEVANT SOURCES
After understanding the concepts of research problem
and identification of key terms now it is time to locate the
relevant sources for literature review. The journals are
considered as superior and up-to-date source over the books
and other resource.

SEARCHING THE LITERATURE
Having selected relevant sources of literature review
the next step is to identify in a structured way the
appropriate and relevant information. The traditional method
of literature search is manual search from the hard copy of
journals that are specially related to the topic of interest or
those that are likely to cover the topic.

ANALYSING AND SYNTHESIZING THE LITERATURE
After collecting the relevant literature it is the stage to analyze and
synthesize the collected literature. There are several sub stages or systems to
achieve this purposes. The most popular and simple method is referred to as the
preview questions, read, summarize (PQRS) system. This system not only
keeps the reviewer focused and consistent but also ultimately facilities easy
identification and retrieval of the relevant literature.
Your literature review should be guided by a central research question.
Remember, it is not a collection of loosely related studies in a field but instead
represents background and research developments related to a specific research
question, interpreted and analysed by you in a synthesized way.

WRITING THE LITERATURE REVIEW
This is the final step of literature review after completing
the adequate appraisal of literature. It is time to give a serious
thought about how to write a draft of literature review. It is
essential to avoid long and confusing words and jargon and
keep sentences short with one clear message.
It should contain, introduction, body, and conclusion.

RESOURCES OF LITERATURE REVIEW
RESOURCES
OF
LITERATURE
REVIEW
1.Encyclopedi
a & dictionary
1.Research
Reports
1.Magazines
& newspapers
1.Conference
papers &
Theses
1.Books
&
Journals
1.Electronic
database

ELECTRONIC SOURCES
Computer-assisted literature search has revolutionized the
review of literature.
These searches, however, for a variety of reasons may not
provide the desired references.
Electronic literature search through web may be very useful,
but sometimes it can be time consuming & unpredictable
because there are many website & web pages that can lead to
information overload & confusion.

General literature search can be conducted through search engines like
Yahoo (www.yahoosearch.com), Google (www.google.com), MSN
search, Lycos, WebCrawler, Alta Vista, or Excite.
The most relevant nursing databases are as follows:
CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature):
Accessible at http://www.cinahl.com, it citations of nursing literature
published after 1988. Even full-text articles are available on CINAHL
plus, a paid web page.
PubMed: PubMed can be used to search research abstracts, available at
http://pubmed.com

MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis & Retrieved System Online): It is
another electronic source of literature review commonly used by nurses. The
National Library of Medicine provides free access to MEDLINE through
PubMed, available at
www.pubmed.com or http://ncbi.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi.
Generally, abstracts of research articles are provided free of cost; some of
the full-text copies are also freely available & some others are available for a
free.
Cochrane Database of System Reviews: Health care-related literature can be
searched from this source, available at http://www.cochrane.org.
ERIC: The ERIC database is the largest source of education information. A
free search may be carried.

Registry of Nursing Research: Sigma Theta Tau International Honor
Society of Nursing makes this database available through its Virginia
Henderson International Nursing Library. Access to this database has
been redesigned & made easier for users to obtain evidence &
scientific findings from more than 2,200 research article &
conference abstracts. The research abstracts are searched via key
words, author, & title of the research study. Free access to this
database may be found at http://www.nursinglibrary.org
psycINFO: The psycINFO database belongs to American
Psychological Association, & covers literature from psychological or
related disciplines.

Online Journals: Following are the website addresses for journals & magazines that
are available online:
• http://www.nursefriendly.com/nursing/linksections/nursingjorn al.html
• http://www.nsna.org
• http://www.healthweb.org
• http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php
• http://www.healthweb.org.browse.cfm?catergy=1727
• http://www.juns.nursing.arizona.edu
• http://www.medbioworld.com
• http://www.nursingworld.org.ojin
• http://www.eaa-knowledge.com.ojni/#
• http://www.nursingweek.com

Other online databases: Many other online database can be searched
for free by nurses from the following websites:
• http://www.aidsinfo.nih.gov (HIV/AIDS information)
• http://www.hazmap.nlm.nih.gov (information on hazardous agents)
• http://www.child.nih.gov (combined health information database)
• http://www.toxinet.nlm.nih.gov (toxicology database network)
• Cancer Lit (Cancer literature)

• EMBASE (exerpta Medica Database)
• ETOH (Alcohol & alcohol problems science database)
• Health STAR (Health services technology administration &
research)
• Radix (Nursing managed care databse)
• CD-ROM (Compact disc-read only memory) with research

PRINTED SOURCES
• Printed sources are also used for literature review.
• Printed research summary may be located from published
abstracts such as Nursing Research Abstract, Psychological
Abstracts, Dissertation Abstract International, Masters Abstract
International, etc.
• References of the other printed sources may be located through
indexes such as cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health
Literature, Nursing Studies Index, & Index Medicus.

Following are the main printed sources that can be used to
review the relevant literature:
• Journals: There are several National & International journals
which can be used to review the research.

NAME OF NATIONAL NURSING JOURNALS
o Indian journal of Nursing Research &
Midwifery
o The nursing Journal of India
o Nightingale Nursing Times
o International Journal of Nursing
Education
o Indian Journal of Nursing Studies
Names of international journals
o Nursing Research
o Research in Nursing & Health
o Nursing Sciences Quarterly
o Applied Nursing Research
o Biological Research for Nursing
o Advances in Nursing Sciences
o Clinical Nursing Research
o Worldviews on Evidence-Based
Nursing
o Journal of Qualitative Research
o American Journal of Nursing
o Western Journal of Nursing Research

POINTS TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Be specific
2. Be selective
3. Focus of current topics
4. Ensure evidence for claims
5. Focus on sources of evidences
6. Account of contrary evidences
7. References citation
8. Organization of literature review
9. Referring original source
10. Write in own language
11. Simple and accurate sentence structure
12. Group the ideas
13. Effective use of transition words
14. Avoid abbreviations

Literature review

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