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A Brief History of the Systematic Review

• First Online: 05 August 2020

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• Edward Purssell   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3748-0864 3 &
• Niall McCrae   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9776-7694 4  

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History is important, because it takes a longer-term view of any human enterprise. The way that we do things today might seem quaint or perhaps ethically dubious in years to come. Knowledge of the past is not merely a retrospect, but shows a direction of travel: How can we see where we are going if we don’t know where we are coming from? So let us begin by exploring how the systematic literature review evolved. What is literature, what is the purpose of reviewing such literature, and what is distinct about a systematic review?

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School of Health Sciences, City, University of London, London, UK

Edward Purssell

Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care, King’s College London, London, UK

Niall McCrae

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About this chapter

Purssell, E., McCrae, N. (2020). A Brief History of the Systematic Review. In: How to Perform a Systematic Literature Review. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49672-2_2

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49672-2_2

Published : 05 August 2020

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