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Use the links below to resources for determining the difference between Qualitative Research (open-ended inquiry focusing on description) and Quantitative Research (controlled studies that focus on objective numeric measures)
Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis are techniques for combining the results of many studies on a single topic in order to expand the scale and application of results beyond a single study. Systematic Reviews combine the results of several studies and they sometimes use the statistical method of Meta-Analysis to accomplish this. You can have a systematic review that uses methods other than statistical meta-analysis to analyze the results but any study that uses Meta-Analysis is a systematic review.
The key point is that these research studies/articles present the results of several studies analyzed together.
Use the links below to compare and contrast.
PICOT Defined (from: Riva JJ, Malik KM, Burnie SJ, Endicott AR, Busse JW. What is your research question? An introduction to the PICOT format for clinicians. J Can Chiropr Assoc. 2012 Sep;56(3):167-71. PMID: 22997465; PMCID: PMC3430448. )
The PICOT format is a helpful approach for summarizing research questions that explore the effect of therapy:5
(P) – Population refers to the sample of subjects you wish to recruit for your study. There may be a fine balance between defining a sample that is most likely to respond to your intervention (e.g. no co-morbidity) and one that can be generalized to patients that are likely to be seen in actual practice.
(I) – Intervention refers to the treatment that will be provided to subjects enrolled in your study.
(C) – Comparison identifies what you plan on using as a reference group to compare with your treatment intervention. Many study designs refer to this as the control group. If an existing treatment is considered the ‘gold standard’, then this should be the comparison group.
(O) – Outcome represents what result you plan on measuring to examine the effectiveness of your intervention. Familiar and validated outcome measurement tools relevant to common chiropractic patient populations may include the Neck Disability Index6 or Roland-Morris Questionnaire.7 There are, typically, a multitude of outcome tools available for different clinical populations, each having strengths and weaknesses.
(T) – Time describes the duration for your data collection.