Narrative lit reviews: Still of any use?

[futureapppsy2]

Maybe I'm too well indoctrinated into the world of systematic reviews and meta-analyses (I've been an author on 6, first author on 2 of those), but I'm getting to the point where I struggle to see much of a use for term paper-style"narrative reviews" in peer-reviewed. Articles that offer a reasoned critique of the science (alhough I'd argue that a systematic review or meta also does that), practitioner-focused application, or a theoretical argument via the literature, sure (I've published some of those as well), but not so much "I found a bunch of articles on this topic and here's what they generally say." I was reviewing one such manuscript for a journal recently, and I found I had so many questions about how representative and synthesized the articles really were--what were they inclusion/exclusion criteria for articles in the review? How were results coded and analyzed? Was there consistency or inconsistency across studies or results as a whole? etc. It just made me wonder if the field is sort of moving beyond narrative reviews in favor of either theoretical articles/critical reviews or systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Alternately, am I missing some added value of narrative reviews?

Thoughts?

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[Pragma]

I question any review that does not have some kind of clear inclusion/exclusion criteria

 

[Ollie123]

When I read the title I thought "Of course!" but then you mentioned the exact exceptions I had in mind (e.g. theory papers). Generally speaking, I think if the intent is solely to review the literature there is little to be gained from a haphazard approach to doing so. I can think of a few other exceptions worth considering (journals like Perspectives on Psychological Science that often publish narrative reviews on narrow topics or Annual Review of Psychology-type pieces where it is really intended to be 50% review and 50% "This is where the field needs to go" and sharing ideas). Incidentally, both are essentially commissioned, so it probably keeps the general riff-raff from submitting something they wrote in 2 days to try and eek a publication out of it.

So I guess...no with some additional exceptions?

 

[smalltownpsych]

Maybe I'm too well indoctrinated into the world of systematic reviews and meta-analyses (I've been an author on 6, first author on 2 of those), but I'm getting to the point where I struggle to see much of a use for term paper-style"narrative reviews" in peer-reviewed. Articles that offer a reasoned critique of the science (alhough I'd argue that a systematic review or meta also does that), practitioner-focused application, or a theoretical argument via the literature, sure (I've published some of those as well), but not so much "I found a bunch of articles on this topic and here's what they generally say." I was reviewing one such manuscript for a journal recently, and I found I had so many questions about how representative and synthesized the articles really were--what were they inclusion/exclusion criteria for articles in the review? How were results coded and analyzed? Was there consistency or inconsistency across studies or results as a whole? etc. It just made me wonder if the field is sort of moving beyond narrative reviews in favor of either theoretical articles/critical reviews or systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Alternately, am I missing some added value of narrative reviews?

Thoughts?

I think there is a place for narrative reviews, but they shouldn't be haphazard. One example that springs to mind, is the discussion we had about 12 step programs could be helped by reading a critical review of relevant literature. Sometimes for broad topics, it could be helpful for someone to synthesize some of that information for us.